to me
by Sergeant Cuff. I cooled slowly down to my customary level. I regarded
any other opinion of Miss Rachel, than my lady's opinion or mine, with
a lofty contempt. The only thing I could not do, was to keep off the
subject of the Moonstone! My own good sense ought to have warned me, I
know, to let the matter rest--but, there! the virtues which distinguish
the present generation were not invented in my time. Sergeant Cuff had
hit me on the raw, and, though I did look down upon him with contempt,
the tender place still tingled for all that. The end of it was that I
perversely led him back to the subject of her ladyship's letter. "I am
quite satisfied myself," I said. "But never mind that! Go on, as if
I was still open to conviction. You think Miss Rachel is not to be
believed on her word; and you say we shall hear of the Moonstone again.
Back your opinion, Sergeant," I concluded, in an airy way. "Back your
opinion."

Instead of taking offence, Sergeant Cuff seized my hand, and shook it
till my fingers ached again.

"I declare to heaven," says this strange officer solemnly, "I would
take to domestic service to-morrow, Mr. Betteredge, if I had a chance of
being employed along with You! To say you are as transparent as a child,
sir, is to pay the children a compliment which nine out of ten of them
don't deserve. There! there! we won't begin to dispute again. You shall
have it out of me on easier terms than that. I won't say a word more
about her ladyship, or about Miss Verinder--I'll only turn prophet, for
once in a way, and for your sake. I have warned you already that you
haven't done with the Moonstone yet. Very well. Now I'll tell you, at
parting, of three things which will happen in the future, and which, I
believe, will force themselves on your attention, whether you like it or
not."

"Go on!" I said, quite unabashed, and just as airy as ever.

"First," said the Sergeant, "you will hear something from the
Yollands--when the postman delivers Rosanna's letter at Cobb's Hole, on
Monday next."

If he had thrown a bucket of cold water over me, I doubt if I could have
felt it much more unpleasantly than I felt those words. Miss Rachel's
assertion of her innocence had left Rosanna's conduct--the making the
new nightgown, the hiding the smeared nightgown, and all the rest of
it--entirely without explanation. And this had never occurred to me,
till Sergeant Cuff forced it on my mind all in a moment!

"In the second