fir-plantation which led to the Shivering Sand.

"Yes," I said, "there is a path."

"Show it to me."

Side by side, in the grey of the summer evening, Sergeant Cuff and I set
forth for the Shivering Sand.

CHAPTER XV

The Sergeant remained silent, thinking his own thoughts, till we entered
the plantation of firs which led to the quicksand. There he roused
himself, like a man whose mind was made up, and spoke to me again.

"Mr. Betteredge," he said, "as you have honoured me by taking an oar in
my boat, and as you may, I think, be of some assistance to me before the
evening is out, I see no use in our mystifying one another any longer,
and I propose to set you an example of plain speaking on my side. You
are determined to give me no information to the prejudice of Rosanna
Spearman, because she has been a good girl to YOU, and because you pity
her heartily. Those humane considerations do you a world of credit, but
they happen in this instance to be humane considerations clean thrown
away. Rosanna Spearman is not in the slightest danger of getting into
trouble--no, not if I fix her with being concerned in the disappearance
of the Diamond, on evidence which is as plain as the nose on your face!"

"Do you mean that my lady won't prosecute?" I asked.

"I mean that your lady CAN'T prosecute," said the Sergeant. "Rosanna
Spearman is simply an instrument in the hands of another person, and
Rosanna Spearman will be held harmless for that other person's sake."

He spoke like a man in earnest--there was no denying that. Still, I felt
something stirring uneasily against him in my mind. "Can't you give that
other person a name?" I said.

"Can't you, Mr. Betteredge?"

"No."

Sergeant Cuff stood stock still, and surveyed me with a look of
melancholy interest.

"It's always a pleasure to me to be tender towards human infirmity," he
said. "I feel particularly tender at the present moment, Mr. Betteredge,
towards you. And you, with the same excellent motive, feel particularly
tender towards Rosanna Spearman, don't you? Do you happen to know
whether she has had a new outfit of linen lately?"

What he meant by slipping in this extraordinary question unawares, I was
at a total loss to imagine. Seeing no possible injury to Rosanna if I
owned the truth, I answered that the girl had come to us rather sparely
provided with linen, and that my lady, in recompense for her good
conduct (I laid a stress on her good conduct), ha