Chapter 13

I found my lady in her own sitting-room.

She started and looked annoyed when I mentioned the sergeant cuff wished to speak to her.

"'Must I see him,' she asked.

Can't you represent me, Gabriel?'

I felt at a loss to understand this, and showed it plainly, I suppose, in my face.

My lady was so good as to explain herself.

"'I'm afraid my nerves are a little shaken,' she said.

There's something in that police officer from London which I recoil from.

I don't know why.

I have a presentiment that he's bringing trouble and misery with him into the house.

Very foolish and very unlike me, but so it is.'

I hardly knew what to say to this.

The more I saw of sergeant cuff, the better I liked him.

My lady rallied a little after having opened her heart to me, being naturally a woman of

a high courage as I've already told you.

If I must see him, I must,' she said.

But I can't prevail on myself to see him alone.

Bring him in, Gabriel, and stay here as long as he stays.

This was the first attack of the meagrums that I remembered in my mistress since the time

when she was a young girl.

I went back to the Boudoir.

...