Sergeant Cuff made no
remark to me. He turned his melancholy face to the window; he put his
lanky hands into his pockets; and he whistled "The Last Rose of Summer"
softly to himself.
At last, Samuel came in, not with the keys, but with a morsel of paper
for me. I got at my spectacles, with some fumbling and difficulty,
feeling the Sergeant's dismal eyes fixed on me all the time. There were
two or three lines on the paper, written in pencil by my lady. They
informed me that Miss Rachel flatly refused to have her wardrobe
examined. Asked for her reasons, she had burst out crying. Asked again,
she had said: "I won't, because I won't. I must yield to force if
you use it, but I will yield to nothing else." I understood my lady's
disinclination to face Sergeant Cuff with such an answer from her
daughter as that. If I had not been too old for the amiable weaknesses
of youth, I believe I should have blushed at the notion of facing him
myself.
"Any news of Miss Verinder's keys?" asked the Sergeant.
"My young lady refuses to have her wardrobe examined."
"Ah!" said the Sergeant.
His voice was not quite in such a perfect state of discipline as his
face.
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