Rosanna Spearman going to leave us!  I pricked up my ears at that.  It seemed strange, to say the least of it, that she should have given no warning, in the first place, to my lady or to me.  A certain doubt came up in my mind whether Sergeant Cuff’s last random shot might not have hit the mark.  I began to question whether my share in the proceedings was quite as harmless a one as I had thought it.  It might be all in the way of the Sergeant’s business to mystify an honest woman by wrapping her round in a network of lies but it was my duty to have remembered, as a good Protestant, that the father of lies is the Devil—­and that mischief and the Devil are never far apart.  Beginning to smell mischief in the air, I tried to take Sergeant Cuff out.  He sat down again instantly, and asked for a little drop of comfort out of the Dutch bottle.  Mrs Yolland sat down opposite to him, and gave him his nip.  I went on to the door, excessively uncomfortable, and said I thought I must bid them good-night—­and yet I didn’t go.

“So she means to leave?” says the Sergeant.  “What is she to do when she does leave?  Sad, sad!  The poor creature has got no friends in the world, except you and me.”

“Ah, but she has though!” says Mrs. Yolland.  “She came in here, as I told you, this evening; and, after sitting and talking a little with my girl Lucy and me she asked to go up-stairs by herself, into Lucy’s room.  It’s the only room in our place where there’s pen and ink.  ’I want to write a letter to a friend,’ she says ’and I can’t do it for the prying and peeping of the servants up at the house.’  Who the letter was written to I can’t tell you:  it must have been a mortal long one, judging by the time she stopped up-stairs over it.  I offered her a postage-stamp when she came down.  She hadn’t got the letter in her hand, and she didn’t accept the stamp.  A little close, poor soul (as you know), about herself and her doings.  But a friend she has got somewhere, I can tell you; and to that friend you may depend upon it, she will go.”

“Soon?” asked the Sergeant.

“As soon as she can.” says Mrs. Yolland.

Here I stepped in again from the door.  As chief of my lady’s establishment, I couldn’t allow this sort of loose talk about a servant of ours going, or not going, to proceed any longer in my presence, without noticing it.

“You must be mistaken about Rosanna Spearman,” I said.  “If she had been going to leave her present situation, she would have mentioned it, in the first place, to me.”

“Mistaken?” cries Mrs. Yolland.  “Why, only an hour ago she bought some things she wanted for travelling—­of my own self, Mr. Betteredge, in this very room.  And that reminds me,” says the wearisome woman, suddenly beginning to feel in her pocket, “of something I have got it on my mind to say about Rosanna and her money.  Are you either of you likely to see her when you go back to the house?”