"
My answer presenting rather a wide field for Mr. Superintendent's
suspicions to range over, he tried to narrow it by asking about the
servants' characters next.
I thought directly of Rosanna Spearman. But it was neither my place nor
my wish to direct suspicion against a poor girl, whose honesty had
been above all doubt as long as I had known her. The matron at the
Reformatory had reported her to my lady as a sincerely penitent and
thoroughly trustworthy girl. It was the Superintendent's business to
discover reason for suspecting her first--and then, and not till then,
it would be my duty to tell him how she came into my lady's service.
"All our people have excellent characters," I said. "And all have
deserved the trust their mistress has placed in them." After that, there
was but one thing left for Mr. Seegrave to do--namely, to set to work,
and tackle the servants' characters himself.
One after another, they were examined. One after another, they proved to
have nothing to say--and said it (so far as the women were concerned) at
great length, and with a very angry sense of the embargo laid on their
bed-rooms. The rest of them being sent back to their places downstairs,
Penelope was then summoned, and examined separately a second time.
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