"That's a wonderful woman," said Sergeant Cuff, when we were out in the
hall again. "But for her self-control, the mystery that puzzles you, Mr.
Betteredge, would have been at an end to-night."
At those words, the truth rushed at last into my stupid old head. For
the moment, I suppose I must have gone clean out of my senses. I seized
the Sergeant by the collar of his coat, and pinned him against the wall.
"Damn you!" I cried out, "there's something wrong about Miss Rachel--and
you have been hiding it from me all this time!"
Sergeant Cuff looked up at me--flat against the wall--without stirring a
hand, or moving a muscle of his melancholy face.
"Ah," he said, "you've guessed it at last."
My hand dropped from his collar, and my head sunk on my breast. Please
to remember, as some excuse for my breaking out as I did, that I had
served the family for fifty years. Miss Rachel had climbed upon my
knees, and pulled my whiskers, many and many a time when she was a
child. Miss Rachel, with all her faults, had been, to my mind, the
dearest and prettiest and best young mistress that ever an old servant
waited on, and loved. I begged Sergeant's Cuff's pardon, but I am afraid
I did it with watery eyes, and not in a very becoming way.
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