n this way--and I did.
People in high life have all the luxuries to themselves--among others,
the luxury of indulging their feelings. People in low life have no such
privilege. Necessity, which spares our betters, has no pity on us. We
learn to put our feelings back into ourselves, and to jog on with our
duties as patiently as may be. I don't complain of this--I only notice
it. Penelope and I were ready for the Sergeant, as soon as the Sergeant
was ready on his side. Asked if she knew what had led her fellow-servant
to destroy herself, my daughter answered (as you will foresee) that it
was for love of Mr. Franklin Blake. Asked next, if she had mentioned
this notion of hers to any other person, Penelope answered, "I have not
mentioned it, for Rosanna's sake." I felt it necessary to add a word to
this. 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. He had been too fond of
his cousin to like to confess this to himself, until the truth had been
forced on him, when she drove off to her aunt's. His eyes once opened
in that cruel way which you know of, Mr. Franklin had taken his
resolution--the one resolution which a man of any spirit COULD take--to
leave the house.
What he had to say to
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