" "Shall I tell your
father, sir?" "Yes; tell him at the end of the session."
The next morning Mr. Franklin had started for foreign parts. To what
particular place he was bound, nobody (himself included) could presume
to guess. We might hear of him next in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America.
The chances were as equally divided as possible, in Mr. Jeffco's
opinion, among the four quarters of the globe.
This news--by closing up all prospects of my bringing Limping Lucy and
Mr. Franklin together--at once stopped any further progress of mine
on the way to discovery. Penelope's belief that her fellow-servant had
destroyed herself through unrequited love for Mr. Franklin Blake, was
confirmed--and that was all. Whether the letter which Rosanna had
left to be given to him after her death did, or did not, contain the
confession which Mr. Franklin had suspected her of trying to make to him
in her life-time, it was impossible to say. It might be only a farewell
word, telling nothing but the secret of her unhappy fancy for a person
beyond her reach. Or it might own the whole truth about the strange
proceedings in which Sergeant Cuff had detected her, from the time
when the Moonstone was lost, to the time when she rushed to her own
destruction at the Shivering Sand.
Pages:
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370