Penelope's reason why, on this occasion, may be given in her own words.
"I am afraid, father," she said, "Mr. Franklin has hurt Rosanna cruelly,
without intending it."
"What took Rosanna into the shrubbery walk?" I asked.
"Her own madness," says Penelope; "I can call it nothing else. She was
bent on speaking to Mr. Franklin, this morning, come what might of it. I
did my best to stop her; you saw that. If I could only have got her away
before she heard those dreadful words----"
"There! there!" I said, "don't lose your head. I can't call to mind that
anything happened to alarm Rosanna."
"Nothing to alarm her, father. But Mr. Franklin said he took no interest
whatever in her--and, oh, he said it in such a cruel voice!"
"He said it to stop the Sergeant's mouth," I answered.
"I told her that," says Penelope. "But you see, father (though Mr.
Franklin isn't to blame), he's been mortifying and disappointing her for
weeks and weeks past; and now this comes on the top of it all! She has
no right, of course, to expect him to take any interest in her. It's
quite monstrous that she should forget herself and her station in
that way. But she seems to have lost pride, and proper feeling, and
everything. She frightened me, father, when Mr. Franklin said those
words. They seemed to turn her into stone. A sudden quiet came over her,
and she has gone about her work, ever since, like a woman in a dream."
I began to feel a little uneasy. There was something in the way Penelope
put it which silenced my superior sense. I called to mind, now my
thoughts were directed that way, what had passed between Mr. Franklin
and Rosanna overnight. She looked cut to the heart on that occasion; and
now, as ill-luck would have it, she had been unavoidably stung again,
poor soul, on the tender place. Sad! sad!--all the more sad because the
girl had no reason to justify her, and no right to feel it.
I had promised Mr. Franklin to speak to Rosanna, and this seemed the
fittest time for keeping my word.
We found the girl sweeping the corridor outside the bedrooms, pale
and composed, and neat as ever in her modest print dress. I noticed a
curious dimness and dullness in her eyes--not as if she had been crying
but as if she had been looking at something too long. Possibly, it was
a misty something raised by her own thoughts. There was certainly no
object about her to look at which she had not seen already hundreds on
hundreds of times.
"Cheer up, Rosanna!" I said. "You mustn't fret over your own fancies. I
have got something to say to you from Mr. Franklin."