"In all my thoughts of you I had never thought of your going away. I
couldn't speak to Penelope. I could only look at her.
"'I've just left Miss Rachel,' Penelope went on. 'And a hard matter
I have had of it to put up with her temper. She says the house is
unbearable to her with the police in it; and she's determined to speak
to my lady this evening, and to go to her Aunt Ablewhite to-morrow. If
she does that, Mr. Franklin will be the next to find a reason for going
away, you may depend on it!' "I recovered the use of my tongue at that. 'Do you mean to say Mr.
Franklin will go with her?' I asked.
"'Only too gladly, if she would let him; but she won't. HE has been made
to feel her temper; HE is in her black books too--and that after having
done all he can to help her, poor fellow! No! no! If they don't make
it up before to-morrow, you will see Miss Rachel go one way, and Mr.
Franklin another. Where he may betake himself to I can't say. But he
will never stay here, Rosanna, after Miss Rachel has left us.' "I managed to master the despair I felt at the prospect of your going
away. To own the truth, I saw a little glimpse of hope for myself if
there was really a serious disagreement between Miss Rachel and you. 'Do
you know,' I asked, 'what the quarrel is between them?' "'It is all on Miss Rachel's side,' Penelope said. 'And, for anything I
know to the contrary, it's all Miss Rachel's temper, and nothing else.
I am loth to distress you, Rosanna; but don't run away with the notion
that Mr. Franklin is ever likely to quarrel with HER. He's a great deal
too fond of her for that!' "She had only just spoken those cruel words when there came a call to
us from Mr. Betteredge. All the indoor servants were to assemble in the
hall. And then we were to go in, one by one, and be questioned in Mr.
Betteredge's room by Sergeant Cuff.
"It came to my turn to go in, after her ladyship's maid and the upper
housemaid had been questioned first. Sergeant Cuff's inquiries--though
he wrapped them up very cunningly--soon showed me that those two women
(the bitterest enemies I had in the house) had made their discoveries
outside my door, on the Tuesday afternoon, and again on the Thursday
night. They had told the Sergeant enough to open his eyes to some
part of the truth. He rightly believed me to have made a new nightgown
secretly, but he wrongly believed the paint-stained nightgown to be
mine. I felt satisfied of another thing, from what he said, which it
puzzled me to understand. He suspected me, of course, of being concerned
in the disappearance of the Diamond. But, at the same time, he let me
see--purposely, as I thought--that he did not consider me as the person
chiefly answerable for the loss of the jewel. He appeared to think that
I had been acting under the direction of somebody else. Who that person
might be, I couldn't guess then, and can't guess now.