I said, "And for Mr. Franklin's sake, my dear, as well. If Rosanna
HAS died for love of him, it is not with his knowledge or by his fault.
Let him leave the house to-day, if he does leave it, without the useless
pain of knowing the truth." Sergeant Cuff said, "Quite right," and fell
silent again; comparing Penelope's notion (as it seemed to me) with some
other notion of his own which he kept to himself.
At the end of the half-hour, my mistress's bell rang.
On my way to answer it, I met Mr. Franklin coming out of his aunt's
sitting-room. He mentioned that her ladyship was ready to see Sergeant
Cuff--in my presence as before--and he added that he himself wanted
to say two words to the Sergeant first. On our way back to my room, he
stopped, and looked at the railway time-table in the hall.
"Are you really going to leave us, sir?" I asked. "Miss Rachel will
surely come right again, if you only give her time?"
"She will come right again," answered Mr. Franklin, "when she hears that
I have gone away, and that she will see me no more."
I thought he spoke in resentment of my young lady's treatment of him.
But it was not so. My mistress had noticed, from the time when the
police first came into the house, that the bare mention of him was
enough to set Miss Rachel's temper in a flame.
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