CHAPTER XXIII

I had kept the pony-chaise ready, in case Mr. Franklin persisted in

leaving us by the train that night. The appearance of the luggage,

followed downstairs by Mr. Franklin himself, informed me plainly enough

that he had held firm to a resolution for once in his life.

“So you have really made up your mind, sir?” I said, as we met in the

hall. “Why not wait a day or two longer, and give Miss Rachel another

chance?”

The foreign varnish appeared to have all worn off Mr. Franklin, now

that the time had come for saying good-bye. Instead of replying to me

in words, he put the letter which her ladyship had addressed to him

into my hand. The greater part of it said over again what had been said

already in the other communication received by me. But there was a bit

about Miss Rachel added at the end, which will account for the

steadiness of Mr. Franklin’s determination, if it accounts for nothing

else.

“You will wonder, I dare say” (her ladyship wrote), “at my allowing my

own daughter to keep me perfectly in the dark. A Diamond worth twenty

thousand pounds has been lost—and I am left to infer that the mystery

of its disappearance is no mystery to Rachel, and that some

incomprehensible obligation of silence has been laid on her, by some

person or persons utterly unknown to me, with some object in view at

which I cannot even guess. Is it conceivable that I should allow myself

to be trifled with in this way? It is quite conceivable, in Rachel’s

present state. She is in a condition of nervous agitation pitiable to

see. I dare not approach the subject of the Moonstone again until time

has done something to quiet her. To help this end, I have not hesitated

to dismiss the police-officer. The mystery which baffles us, baffles

him too. This is not a matter in which any stranger can help us. He

adds to what I have to suffer; and he maddens Rachel if she only hears

his name.

“My plans for the future are as well settled as they can be. My present

idea is to take Rachel to London—partly to relieve her mind by a

complete change, partly to try what may be done by consulting the best

medical advice. Can I ask you to meet us in town? My dear Franklin,

you, in your way, must imitate my patience, and wait, as I do, for a

fitter time. The valuable assistance which you rendered to the inquiry

after the lost jewel is still an unpardoned offence, in the present

dreadful state of Rachel’s mind. Moving blindfold in this matter, you

have added to the burden of anxiety which she has had to bear, by

innocently threatening her secret with discovery, through your

exertions. It is impossible for me to excuse the perversity that holds

you responsible for consequences which neither you nor I could imagine

or foresee. She is not to be reasoned with—she can only be pitied. I am

grieved to have to say it, but for the present, you and Rachel are

better apart. The only advice I can offer you is, to give her time.”

I handed the letter back, sincerely sorry for Mr. Franklin, for I knew

how fond he was of my young lady; and I saw that her mother’s account

of her had cut him to the heart. “You know the proverb, sir,” was all I

said to him. “When things are at the worst, they’re sure to mend.

Things can’t be much worse, Mr. Franklin, than they are now.”

Mr. Franklin folded up his aunt’s letter, without appearing to be much

comforted by the remark which I had ventured on addressing to him.

“When I came here from London with that horrible Diamond,” he said, “I

don’t believe there was a happier household in England than this. Look

at the household now! Scattered, disunited—the very air of the place

poisoned with mystery and suspicion! Do you remember that morning at

the Shivering Sand, when we talked about my uncle Herncastle, and his

birthday gift? The Moonstone has served the Colonel’s vengeance,

Betteredge, by means which the Colonel himself never dreamt of!”

With that he shook me by the hand, and went out to the pony-chaise.

I followed him down the steps. It was very miserable to see him leaving

the old place, where he had spent the happiest years of his life, in

this way. Penelope (sadly upset by all that had happened in the house)

came round crying, to bid him good-bye. Mr. Franklin kissed her. I

waved my hand as much as to say, “You’re heartily welcome, sir.” Some

of the other female servants appeared, peeping after him round the

corner. He was one of those men whom the women all like. At the last

moment, I stopped the pony-chaise, and begged as a favour that he would

let us hear from him by letter. He didn’t seem to heed what I said—he

was looking round from one thing to another, taking a sort of farewell

of the old house and grounds. “Tell us where you are going to, sir!” I

said, holding on by the chaise, and trying to get at his future plans

in that way. Mr. Franklin pulled his hat down suddenly over his eyes.

“Going?” says he, echoing the word after me. “I am going to the devil!”

The pony started at the word, as if he had felt a Christian horror of

it. “God bless you, sir, go where you may!” was all I had time to say,

before he was out of sight and hearing. A sweet and pleasant gentleman!

With all his faults and follies, a sweet and pleasant gentleman! He

left a sad gap behind him, when he left my lady’s house.

It was dull and dreary enough, when the long summer evening closed in,

on that Saturday night.

I kept my spirits from sinking by sticking fast to my pipe and my

_Robinson Crusoe_. The women (excepting Penelope) beguiled the time by

talking of Rosanna’s suicide. They were all obstinately of opinion that

the poor girl had stolen the Moonstone, and that she had destroyed

herself in terror of being found out. My daughter, of course, privately

held fast to what she had said all along. Her notion of the motive

which was really at the bottom of the suicide failed, oddly enough,

just where my young lady’s assertion of her innocence failed also. It

left Rosanna’s secret journey to Frizinghall, and Rosanna’s proceedings

in the matter of the nightgown entirely unaccounted for. There was no

use in pointing this out to Penelope; the objection made about as much

impression on her as a shower of rain on a waterproof coat. The truth

is, my daughter inherits my superiority to reason—and, in respect to

that accomplishment, has got a long way ahead of her own father.

On the next day (Sunday), the close carriage, which had been kept at

Mr. Ablewhite’s, came back to us empty. The coachman brought a message

for me, and written instructions for my lady’s own maid and for

Penelope.

The message informed me that my mistress had determined to take Miss

Rachel to her house in London, on the Monday. The written instructions

informed the two maids of the clothing that was wanted, and directed

them to meet their mistresses in town at a given hour. Most of the

other servants were to follow. My lady had found Miss Rachel so

unwilling to return to the house, after what had happened in it, that

she had decided on going to London direct from Frizinghall. I was to

remain in the country, until further orders, to look after things

indoors and out. The servants left with me were to be put on board

wages.

Being reminded, by all this, of what Mr. Franklin had said about our

being a scattered and disunited household, my mind was led naturally to

Mr. Franklin himself. The more I thought of him, the more uneasy I felt

about his future proceedings. It ended in my writing, by the Sunday’s

post, to his father’s valet, Mr. Jeffco (whom I had known in former

years) to beg he would let me know what Mr. Franklin had settled to do,

on arriving in London.

The Sunday evening was, if possible, duller even than the Saturday

evening. We ended the day of rest, as hundreds of thousands of people

end it regularly, once a week, in these islands—that is to say, we all

anticipated bedtime, and fell asleep in our chairs.

How the Monday affected the rest of the household I don’t know. The

Monday gave _me_ a good shake up. The first of Sergeant Cuff’s

prophecies of what was to happen—namely, that I should hear from the

Yollands—came true on that day.

I had seen Penelope and my lady’s maid off in the railway with the

luggage for London, and was pottering about the grounds, when I heard

my name called. Turning round, I found myself face to face with the

fisherman’s daughter, Limping Lucy. Bating her lame foot and her

leanness (this last a horrid draw-back to a woman, in my opinion), the

girl had some pleasing qualities in the eye of a man. A dark, keen,

clever face, and a nice clear voice, and a beautiful brown head of hair

counted among her merits. A crutch appeared in the list of her

misfortunes. And a temper reckoned high in the sum total of her

defects.

“Well, my dear,” I said, “what do you want with me?”

“Where’s the man you call Franklin Blake?” says the girl, fixing me

with a fierce look, as she rested herself on her crutch.

“That’s not a respectful way to speak of any gentleman,” I answered.

“If you wish to inquire for my lady’s nephew, you will please to

mention him as Mr. Franklin Blake.”

She limped a step nearer to me, and looked as if she could have eaten

me alive. “_Mr._ Franklin Blake?” she repeated after me. “Murderer

Franklin Blake would be a fitter name for him.”

My practice with the late Mrs. Betteredge came in handy here. Whenever

a woman tries to put _you_ out of temper, turn the tables, and put

_her_ out of temper instead. They are generally prepared for every

effort you can make in your own defence, but that. One word does it as

well as a hundred; and one word did it with Limping Lucy. I looked her

pleasantly in the face; and I said—“Pooh!”

The girl’s temper flamed out directly. She poised herself on her sound

foot, and she took her crutch, and beat it furiously three times on the

ground. “He’s a murderer! he’s a murderer! he’s a murderer! He has been

the death of Rosanna Spearman!” She screamed that answer out at the top

of her voice. One or two of the people at work in the grounds near us

looked up—saw it was Limping Lucy—knew what to expect from that

quarter—and looked away again.

“He has been the death of Rosanna Spearman?” I repeated. “What makes

you say that, Lucy?”

“What do you care? What does any man care? Oh! if she had only thought

of the men as I think, she might have been living now!”

“She always thought kindly of _me_, poor soul,” I said; “and, to the

best of my ability, I always tried to act kindly by _her_.”

I spoke those words in as comforting a manner as I could. The truth is,

I hadn’t the heart to irritate the girl by another of my smart replies.

I had only noticed her temper at first. I noticed her wretchedness

now—and wretchedness is not uncommonly insolent, you will find, in

humble life. My answer melted Limping Lucy. She bent her head down, and

laid it on the top of her crutch.

“I loved her,” the girl said softly. “She had lived a miserable life,

Mr. Betteredge—vile people had ill-treated her and led her wrong—and it

hadn’t spoiled her sweet temper. She was an angel. She might have been

happy with me. I had a plan for our going to London together like

sisters, and living by our needles. That man came here, and spoilt it

all. He bewitched her. Don’t tell me he didn’t mean it, and didn’t know

it. He ought to have known it. He ought to have taken pity on her. ‘I

can’t live without him—and, oh, Lucy, he never even looks at me.’

That’s what she said. Cruel, cruel, cruel. I said, ‘No man is worth

fretting for in that way.’ And she said, ‘There are men worth dying

for, Lucy, and he is one of them.’ I had saved up a little money. I had

settled things with father and mother. I meant to take her away from

the mortification she was suffering here. We should have had a little

lodging in London, and lived together like sisters. She had a good

education, sir, as you know, and she wrote a good hand. She was quick

at her needle. I have a good education, and I write a good hand. I am

not as quick at my needle as she was—but I could have done. We might

have got our living nicely. And, oh! what happens this morning? what

happens this morning? Her letter comes and tells me that she has done

with the burden of her life. Her letter comes, and bids me good-bye for

ever. Where is he?” cries the girl, lifting her head from the crutch,

and flaming out again through her tears. “Where’s this gentleman that I

mustn’t speak of, except with respect? Ha, Mr. Betteredge, the day is

not far off when the poor will rise against the rich. I pray Heaven

they may begin with _him_. I pray Heaven they may begin with _him_.”

Here was another of your average good Christians, and here was the

usual break-down, consequent on that same average Christianity being

pushed too far! The parson himself (though I own this is saying a great

deal) could hardly have lectured the girl in the state she was in now.

All I ventured to do was to keep her to the point—in the hope of

something turning up which might be worth hearing.

“What do you want with Mr. Franklin Blake?” I asked.

“I want to see him.”

“For anything particular?”

“I have got a letter to give him.”

“From Rosanna Spearman?”

“Yes.”

“Sent to you in your own letter?”

“Yes.”

Was the darkness going to lift? Were all the discoveries that I was

dying to make, coming and offering themselves to me of their own

accord? I was obliged to wait a moment. Sergeant Cuff had left his

infection behind him. Certain signs and tokens, personal to myself,

warned me that the detective-fever was beginning to set in again.

“You can’t see Mr. Franklin,” I said.

“I must, and will, see him.”

“He went to London last night.”

Limping Lucy looked me hard in the face, and saw that I was speaking

the truth. Without a word more, she turned about again instantly

towards Cobb’s Hole.

“Stop!” I said. “I expect news of Mr. Franklin Blake tomorrow. Give me

your letter, and I’ll send it on to him by the post.”

Limping Lucy steadied herself on her crutch and looked back at me over

her shoulder.

“I am to give it from my hands into his hands,” she said. “And I am to

give it to him in no other way.”

“Shall I write, and tell him what you have said?”

“Tell him I hate him. And you will tell him the truth.”

“Yes, yes. But about the letter——?”

“If he wants the letter, he must come back here, and get it from Me.”

With those words she limped off on the way to Cobb’s Hole. The

detective-fever burnt up all my dignity on the spot. I followed her,

and tried to make her talk. All in vain. It was my misfortune to be a

man—and Limping Lucy enjoyed disappointing me. Later in the day, I

tried my luck with her mother. Good Mrs. Yolland could only cry, and

recommend a drop of comfort out of the Dutch bottle. I found the

fisherman on the beach. He said it was “a bad job,” and went on mending

his net. Neither father nor mother knew more than I knew. The one way

left to try was the chance, which might come with the morning, of

writing to Mr. Franklin Blake.

I leave you to imagine how I watched for the postman on Tuesday

morning. He brought me two letters. One, from Penelope (which I had

hardly patience enough to read), announced that my lady and Miss Rachel

were safely established in London. The other, from Mr. Jeffco, informed

me that his master’s son had left England already.

On reaching the metropolis, Mr. Franklin had, it appeared, gone

straight to his father’s residence. He arrived at an awkward time. Mr.

Blake, the elder, was up to his eyes in the business of the House of

Commons, and was amusing himself at home that night with the favourite

parliamentary plaything which they call “a private bill.” Mr. Jeffco

himself showed Mr. Franklin into his father’s study. “My dear Franklin!

why do you surprise me in this way? Anything wrong?” “Yes; something

wrong with Rachel; I am dreadfully distressed about it.” “Grieved to

hear it. But I can’t listen to you now.” “When _can_ you listen?” “My

dear boy! I won’t deceive you. I can listen at the end of the session,

not a moment before. Good-night.” “Thank you, sir. Good-night.”

Such was the conversation, inside the study, as reported to me by Mr.

Jeffco. The conversation outside the study, was shorter still. “Jeffco,

see what time the tidal train starts tomorrow morning.” “At six-forty,

Mr. Franklin.” “Have me called at five.” “Going abroad, sir?” “Going,

Jeffco, wherever the railway chooses to take me.” “Shall I tell your

father, sir?” “Yes; tell him at the end of the session.”

The next morning Mr. Franklin had started for foreign parts. To what

particular place he was bound, nobody (himself included) could presume

to guess. We might hear of him next in Europe, Asia, Africa, or

America. The chances were as equally divided as possible, in Mr.

Jeffco’s opinion, among the four quarters of the globe.

This news—by closing up all prospects of my bringing Limping Lucy and

Mr. Franklin together—at once stopped any further progress of mine on

the way to discovery. Penelope’s belief that her fellow-servant had

destroyed herself through unrequited love for Mr. Franklin Blake, was

confirmed—and that was all. Whether the letter which Rosanna had left

to be given to him after her death did, or did not, contain the

confession which Mr. Franklin had suspected her of trying to make to

him in her life-time, it was impossible to say. It might be only a

farewell word, telling nothing but the secret of her unhappy fancy for

a person beyond her reach. Or it might own the whole truth about the

strange proceedings in which Sergeant Cuff had detected her, from the

time when the Moonstone was lost, to the time when she rushed to her

own destruction at the Shivering Sand. A sealed letter it had been

placed in Limping Lucy’s hand, and a sealed letter it remained to me

and to every one about the girl, her own parents included. We all

suspected her of having been in the dead woman’s confidence; we all

tried to make her speak; we all failed. Now one, and now another, of

the servants—still holding to the belief that Rosanna had stolen the

Diamond and had hidden it—peered and poked about the rocks to which she

had been traced, and peered and poked in vain. The tide ebbed, and the

tide flowed; the summer went on, and the autumn came. And the

Quicksand, which hid her body, hid her secret too.

The news of Mr. Franklin’s departure from England on the Sunday

morning, and the news of my lady’s arrival in London with Miss Rachel

on the Monday afternoon, had reached me, as you are aware, by the

Tuesday’s post. The Wednesday came, and brought nothing. The Thursday

produced a second budget of news from Penelope.

My girl’s letter informed me that some great London doctor had been

consulted about her young lady, and had earned a guinea by remarking

that she had better be amused. Flower-shows, operas, balls—there was a

whole round of gaieties in prospect; and Miss Rachel, to her mother’s

astonishment, eagerly took to it all. Mr. Godfrey had called; evidently

as sweet as ever on his cousin, in spite of the reception he had met

with, when he tried his luck on the occasion of the birthday. To

Penelope’s great regret, he had been most graciously received, and had

added Miss Rachel’s name to one of his Ladies’ Charities on the spot.

My mistress was reported to be out of spirits, and to have held two

long interviews with her lawyer. Certain speculations followed,

referring to a poor relation of the family—one Miss Clack, whom I have

mentioned in my account of the birthday dinner, as sitting next to Mr.

Godfrey, and having a pretty taste in champagne. Penelope was

astonished to find that Miss Clack had not called yet. She would surely

not be long before she fastened herself on my lady as usual—and so

forth, and so forth, in the way women have of girding at each other, on

and off paper. This would not have been worth mentioning, I admit, but

for one reason. I hear you are likely to be turned over to Miss Clack,

after parting with me. In that case, just do me the favour of not

believing a word she says, if she speaks of your humble servant.

On Friday, nothing happened—except that one of the dogs showed signs of

a breaking out behind the ears. I gave him a dose of syrup of

buckthorn, and put him on a diet of pot-liquor and vegetables till

further orders. Excuse my mentioning this. It has slipped in somehow.

Pass it over please. I am fast coming to the end of my offences against

your cultivated modern taste. Besides, the dog was a good creature, and

deserved a good physicking; he did indeed.

Saturday, the last day of the week, is also the last day in my

narrative.

The morning’s post brought me a surprise in the shape of a London

newspaper. The handwriting on the direction puzzled me. I compared it

with the money-lender’s name and address as recorded in my pocket-book,

and identified it at once as the writing of Sergeant Cuff.

Looking through the paper eagerly enough, after this discovery, I found

an ink-mark drawn round one of the police reports. Here it is, at your

service. Read it as I read it, and you will set the right value on the

Sergeant’s polite attention in sending me the news of the day:

“LAMBETH—Shortly before the closing of the court, Mr. Septimus Luker,

the well-known dealer in ancient gems, carvings, intagli, &c., &c.,

applied to the sitting magistrate for advice. The applicant stated that

he had been annoyed, at intervals throughout the day, by the

proceedings of some of those strolling Indians who infest the streets.

The persons complained of were three in number. After having been sent

away by the police, they had returned again and again, and had

attempted to enter the house on pretence of asking for charity. Warned

off in the front, they had been discovered again at the back of the

premises. Besides the annoyance complained of, Mr. Luker expressed

himself as being under some apprehension that robbery might be

contemplated. His collection contained many unique gems, both classical

and Oriental, of the highest value. He had only the day before been

compelled to dismiss a skilled workman in ivory carving from his

employment (a native of India, as we understood), on suspicion of

attempted theft; and he felt by no means sure that this man and the

street jugglers of whom he complained, might not be acting in concert.

It might be their object to collect a crowd, and create a disturbance

in the street, and, in the confusion thus caused, to obtain access to

the house. In reply to the magistrate, Mr. Luker admitted that he had

no evidence to produce of any attempt at robbery being in

contemplation. He could speak positively to the annoyance and

interruption caused by the Indians, but not to anything else. The

magistrate remarked that, if the annoyance were repeated, the applicant

could summon the Indians to that court, where they might easily be

dealt with under the Act. As to the valuables in Mr. Luker’s

possession, Mr. Luker himself must take the best measures for their

safe custody. He would do well perhaps to communicate with the police,

and to adopt such additional precautions as their experience might

suggest. The applicant thanked his worship, and withdrew.”

One of the wise ancients is reported (I forget on what occasion) as

having recommended his fellow-creatures to “look to the end.” Looking

to the end of these pages of mine, and wondering for some days past how

I should manage to write it, I find my plain statement of facts coming

to a conclusion, most appropriately, of its own self. We have gone on,

in this matter of the Moonstone, from one marvel to another; and here

we end with the greatest marvel of all—namely, the accomplishment of

Sergeant Cuff’s three predictions in less than a week from the time

when he had made them.

After hearing from the Yollands on the Monday, I had now heard of the

Indians, and heard of the money-lender, in the news from London—Miss

Rachel herself remember, being also in London at the time. You see, I

put things at their worst, even when they tell dead against my own

view. If you desert me, and side with the Sergeant, on the evidence

before you—if the only rational explanation you can see is, that Miss

Rachel and Mr. Luker must have got together, and that the Moonstone

must be now in pledge in the money-lender’s house—I own, I can’t blame

you for arriving at that conclusion. In the dark, I have brought you

thus far. In the dark I am compelled to leave you, with my best

respects.

Why compelled? it may be asked. Why not take the persons who have gone

along with me, so far, up into those regions of superior enlightenment

in which I sit myself?

In answer to this, I can only state that I am acting under orders, and

that those orders have been given to me (as I understand) in the

interests of truth. I am forbidden to tell more in this narrative than

I knew myself at the time. Or, to put it plainer, I am to keep strictly

within the limits of my own experience, and am not to inform you of

what other persons told me—for the very sufficient reason that you are

to have the information from those other persons themselves, at first

hand. In this matter of the Moonstone the plan is, not to present

reports, but to produce witnesses. I picture to myself a member of the

family reading these pages fifty years hence. Lord! what a compliment

he will feel it, to be asked to take nothing on hear-say, and to be

treated in all respects like a Judge on the bench.

At this place, then, we part—for the present, at least—after long

journeying together, with a companionable feeling, I hope, on both

sides. The devil’s dance of the Indian Diamond has threaded its way to

London; and to London you must go after it, leaving me at the country

house. Please to excuse the faults of this composition—my talking so

much of myself, and being too familiar, I am afraid, with you. I mean

no harm; and I drink most respectfully (having just done dinner) to

your health and prosperity, in a tankard of her ladyship’s ale. May you

find in these leaves of my writing, what _Robinson Crusoe_ found in his

experience on the desert island—namely, “something to comfort

yourselves from, and to set in the Description of Good and Evil, on the

Credit Side of the Account.”—Farewell.

THE END OF THE FIRST PERIOD.

SECOND PERIOD.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE TRUTH. (1848-1849.)

_The Events related in several Narratives._

FIRST NARRATIVE.

_Contributed by Miss Clack; niece of the late Sir John Verinder_

CHAPTER I

I am indebted to my dear parents (both now in heaven) for having had

habits of order and regularity instilled into me at a very early age.

In that happy bygone time, I was taught to keep my hair tidy at all

hours of the day and night, and to fold up every article of my clothing

carefully, in the same order, on the same chair, in the same place at

the foot of the bed, before retiring to rest. An entry of the day’s

events in my little diary invariably preceded the folding up. The

“Evening Hymn” (repeated in bed) invariably followed the folding up.

And the sweet sleep of childhood invariably followed the “Evening

Hymn.”

In later life (alas!) the Hymn has been succeeded by sad and bitter

meditations; and the sweet sleep has been but ill exchanged for the

broken slumbers which haunt the uneasy pillow of care. On the other

hand, I have continued to fold my clothes, and to keep my little diary.

The former habit links me to my happy childhood—before papa was ruined.

The latter habit—hitherto mainly useful in helping me to discipline the

fallen nature which we all inherit from Adam—has unexpectedly proved

important to my humble interests in quite another way. It has enabled

poor Me to serve the caprice of a wealthy member of the family into

which my late uncle married. I am fortunate enough to be useful to Mr.

Franklin Blake.

I have been cut off from all news of my relatives by marriage for some

time past. When we are isolated and poor, we are not infrequently

forgotten. I am now living, for economy’s sake, in a little town in

Brittany, inhabited by a select circle of serious English friends, and

possessed of the inestimable advantages of a Protestant clergyman and a

cheap market.

In this retirement—a Patmos amid the howling ocean of popery that

surrounds us—a letter from England has reached me at last. I find my

insignificant existence suddenly remembered by Mr. Franklin Blake. My

wealthy relative—would that I could add my spiritually-wealthy

relative!—writes, without even an attempt at disguising that he wants

something of me. The whim has seized him to stir up the deplorable

scandal of the Moonstone: and I am to help him by writing the account

of what I myself witnessed while visiting at Aunt Verinder’s house in

London. Pecuniary remuneration is offered to me—with the want of

feeling peculiar to the rich. I am to re-open wounds that Time has

barely closed; I am to recall the most intensely painful

remembrances—and this done, I am to feel myself compensated by a new

laceration, in the shape of Mr. Blake’s cheque. My nature is weak. It

cost me a hard struggle, before Christian humility conquered sinful

pride, and self-denial accepted the cheque.

Without my diary, I doubt—pray let me express it in the grossest

terms!—if I could have honestly earned my money. With my diary, the

poor labourer (who forgives Mr. Blake for insulting her) is worthy of

her hire. Nothing escaped me at the time I was visiting dear Aunt

Verinder. Everything was entered (thanks to my early training) day by

day as it happened; and everything, down to the smallest particular,

shall be told here. My sacred regard for truth is (thank God) far above

my respect for persons. It will be easy for Mr. Blake to suppress what

may not prove to be sufficiently flattering in these pages to the

person chiefly concerned in them. He has purchased my time, but not

even _his_ wealth can purchase my conscience too.*

[*Note. _Added by Franklin Blake._—Miss Clack may make her mind quite

easy on this point. Nothing will be added, altered or removed, in her

manuscript, or in any of the other manuscripts which pass through my

hands. Whatever opinions any of the writers may express, whatever

peculiarities of treatment may mark, and perhaps in a literary sense,

disfigure the narratives which I am now collecting, not a line will be

tampered with anywhere, from first to last. As genuine documents they

are sent to me—and as genuine documents I shall preserve them, endorsed

by the attestations of witnesses who can speak to the facts. It only

remains to be added that “the person chiefly concerned” in Miss Clack’s

narrative, is happy enough at the present moment, not only to brave the

smartest exercise of Miss Clack’s pen, but even to recognise its

unquestionable value as an instrument for the exhibition of Miss

Clack’s character.]

My diary informs me, that I was accidentally passing Aunt Verinder’s

house in Montagu Square, on Monday, 3rd July, 1848.

Seeing the shutters opened, and the blinds drawn up, I felt that it

would be an act of polite attention to knock, and make inquiries. The

person who answered the door, informed me that my aunt and her daughter

(I really cannot call her my cousin!) had arrived from the country a

week since, and meditated making some stay in London. I sent up a

message at once, declining to disturb them, and only begging to know

whether I could be of any use.

The person who answered the door, took my message in insolent silence,

and left me standing in the hall. She is the daughter of a heathen old

man named Betteredge—long, too long, tolerated in my aunt’s family. I

sat down in the hall to wait for my answer—and, having always a few

tracts in my bag, I selected one which proved to be quite

providentially applicable to the person who answered the door. The hall

was dirty, and the chair was hard; but the blessed consciousness of

returning good for evil raised me quite above any trifling

considerations of that kind. The tract was one of a series addressed to

young women on the sinfulness of dress. In style it was devoutly

familiar. Its title was, “A Word With You On Your Cap-Ribbons.”

“My lady is much obliged, and begs you will come and lunch tomorrow at

two.”

I passed over the manner in which she gave her message, and the

dreadful boldness of her look. I thanked this young castaway; and I

said, in a tone of Christian interest, “Will you favour me by accepting

a tract?”

She looked at the title. “Is it written by a man or a woman, Miss? If

it’s written by a woman, I had rather not read it on that account. If

it’s written by a man, I beg to inform him that he knows nothing about

it.” She handed me back the tract, and opened the door. We must sow the

good seed somehow. I waited till the door was shut on me, and slipped

the tract into the letter-box. When I had dropped another tract through

the area railings, I felt relieved, in some small degree, of a heavy

responsibility towards others.

We had a meeting that evening of the Select Committee of the

Mothers’-Small-Clothes-Conversion-Society. The object of this excellent

Charity is—as all serious people know—to rescue unredeemed fathers’

trousers from the pawnbroker, and to prevent their resumption, on the

part of the irreclaimable parent, by abridging them immediately to suit

the proportions of the innocent son. I was a member, at that time, of

the select committee; and I mention the Society here, because my

precious and admirable friend, Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, was associated

with our work of moral and material usefulness. I had expected to see

him in the boardroom, on the Monday evening of which I am now writing,

and had proposed to tell him, when we met, of dear Aunt Verinder’s

arrival in London. To my great disappointment he never appeared. On my

expressing a feeling of surprise at his absence, my sisters of the

Committee all looked up together from their trousers (we had a great

pressure of business that night), and asked in amazement, if I had not

heard the news. I acknowledged my ignorance, and was then told, for the

first time, of an event which forms, so to speak, the starting-point of

this narrative. On the previous Friday, two gentlemen—occupying

widely-different positions in society—had been the victims of an

outrage which had startled all London. One of the gentlemen was Mr.

Septimus Luker, of Lambeth. The other was Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.

Living in my present isolation, I have no means of introducing the

newspaper-account of the outrage into my narrative. I was also

deprived, at the time, of the inestimable advantage of hearing the

events related by the fervid eloquence of Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite. All I

can do is to state the facts as they were stated, on that Monday

evening, to me; proceeding on the plan which I have been taught from

infancy to adopt in folding up my clothes. Everything shall be put

neatly, and everything shall be put in its place. These lines are

written by a poor weak woman. From a poor weak woman who will be cruel

enough to expect more?

The date—thanks to my dear parents, no dictionary that ever was written

can be more particular than I am about dates—was Friday, June 30th,

1848.

Early on that memorable day, our gifted Mr. Godfrey happened to be

cashing a cheque at a banking-house in Lombard Street. The name of the

firm is accidentally blotted in my diary, and my sacred regard for

truth forbids me to hazard a guess in a matter of this kind.

Fortunately, the name of the firm doesn’t matter. What does matter is a

circumstance that occurred when Mr. Godfrey had transacted his

business. On gaining the door, he encountered a gentleman—a perfect

stranger to him—who was accidentally leaving the office exactly at the

same time as himself. A momentary contest of politeness ensued between

them as to who should be the first to pass through the door of the

bank. The stranger insisted on making Mr. Godfrey precede him; Mr.

Godfrey said a few civil words; they bowed, and parted in the street.

Thoughtless and superficial people may say, Here is surely a very

trumpery little incident related in an absurdly circumstantial manner.

Oh, my young friends and fellow-sinners! beware of presuming to

exercise your poor carnal reason. Oh, be morally tidy. Let your faith

be as your stockings, and your stockings as your faith. Both ever

spotless, and both ready to put on at a moment’s notice!

I beg a thousand pardons. I have fallen insensibly into my

Sunday-school style. Most inappropriate in such a record as this. Let

me try to be worldly—let me say that trifles, in this case as in many

others, led to terrible results. Merely premising that the polite

stranger was Mr. Luker, of Lambeth, we will now follow Mr. Godfrey home

to his residence at Kilburn.

He found waiting for him, in the hall, a poorly clad but delicate and

interesting-looking little boy. The boy handed him a letter, merely

mentioning that he had been entrusted with it by an old lady whom he

did not know, and who had given him no instructions to wait for an

answer. Such incidents as these were not uncommon in Mr. Godfrey’s

large experience as a promoter of public charities. He let the boy go,

and opened the letter.

The handwriting was entirely unfamiliar to him. It requested his

attendance, within an hour’s time, at a house in Northumberland Street,

Strand, which he had never had occasion to enter before. The object

sought was to obtain from the worthy manager certain details on the

subject of the Mothers’-Small-Clothes-Conversion-Society, and the

information was wanted by an elderly lady who proposed adding largely

to the resources of the charity, if her questions were met by

satisfactory replies. She mentioned her name, and she added that the

shortness of her stay in London prevented her from giving any longer

notice to the eminent philanthropist whom she addressed.

Ordinary people might have hesitated before setting aside their own

engagements to suit the convenience of a stranger. The Christian Hero

never hesitates where good is to be done. Mr. Godfrey instantly turned

back, and proceeded to the house in Northumberland Street. A most

respectable though somewhat corpulent man answered the door, and, on

hearing Mr. Godfrey’s name, immediately conducted him into an empty

apartment at the back, on the drawing-room floor. He noticed two

unusual things on entering the room. One of them was a faint odour of

musk and camphor. The other was an ancient Oriental manuscript, richly

illuminated with Indian figures and devices, that lay open to

inspection on a table.

He was looking at the book, the position of which caused him to stand

with his back turned towards the closed folding doors communicating

with the front room, when, without the slightest previous noise to warn

him, he felt himself suddenly seized round the neck from behind. He had

just time to notice that the arm round his neck was naked and of a

tawny-brown colour, before his eyes were bandaged, his mouth was

gagged, and he was thrown helpless on the floor by (as he judged) two

men. A third rifled his pockets, and—if, as a lady, I may venture to

use such an expression—searched him, without ceremony, through and

through to his skin.

Here I should greatly enjoy saying a few cheering words on the devout

confidence which could alone have sustained Mr. Godfrey in an emergency

so terrible as this. Perhaps, however, the position and appearance of

my admirable friend at the culminating period of the outrage (as above

described) are hardly within the proper limits of female discussion.

Let me pass over the next few moments, and return to Mr. Godfrey at the

time when the odious search of his person had been completed. The

outrage had been perpetrated throughout in dead silence. At the end of

it some words were exchanged, among the invisible wretches, in a

language which he did not understand, but in tones which were plainly

expressive (to his cultivated ear) of disappointment and rage. He was

suddenly lifted from the ground, placed in a chair, and bound there

hand and foot. The next moment he felt the air flowing in from the open

door, listened, and concluded that he was alone again in the room.

An interval elapsed, and he heard a sound below like the rustling sound

of a woman’s dress. It advanced up the stairs, and stopped. A female

scream rent the atmosphere of guilt. A man’s voice below exclaimed

“Hullo!” A man’s feet ascended the stairs. Mr. Godfrey felt Christian

fingers unfastening his bandage, and extracting his gag. He looked in

amazement at two respectable strangers, and faintly articulated, “What

does it mean?” The two respectable strangers looked back, and said,

“Exactly the question we were going to ask _you_.”

The inevitable explanation followed. No! Let me be scrupulously

particular. Sal volatile and water followed, to compose dear Mr.

Godfrey’s nerves. The explanation came next.

It appeared from the statement of the landlord and landlady of the

house (persons of good repute in the neighbourhood), that their first

and second floor apartments had been engaged, on the previous day, for

a week certain, by a most respectable-looking gentleman—the same who

has been already described as answering the door to Mr. Godfrey’s

knock. The gentleman had paid the week’s rent and all the week’s extras

in advance, stating that the apartments were wanted for three Oriental

noblemen, friends of his, who were visiting England for the first time.

Early on the morning of the outrage, two of the Oriental strangers,

accompanied by their respectable English friend, took possession of the

apartments. The third was expected to join them shortly; and the

luggage (reported as very bulky) was announced to follow when it had

passed through the Custom-house, late in the afternoon. Not more than

ten minutes previous to Mr. Godfrey’s visit, the third foreigner had

arrived. Nothing out of the common had happened, to the knowledge of

the landlord and landlady downstairs, until within the last five

minutes—when they had seen the three foreigners, accompanied by their

respectable English friend, all leave the house together, walking

quietly in the direction of the Strand. Remembering that a visitor had

called, and not having seen the visitor also leave the house, the

landlady had thought it rather strange that the gentleman should be

left by himself upstairs. After a short discussion with her husband,

she had considered it advisable to ascertain whether anything was

wrong. The result had followed, as I have already attempted to describe

it; and there the explanation of the landlord and the landlady came to

an end.

An investigation was next made in the room. Dear Mr. Godfrey’s property

was found scattered in all directions. When the articles were

collected, however, nothing was missing; his watch, chain, purse, keys,

pocket-handkerchief, note-book, and all his loose papers had been

closely examined, and had then been left unharmed to be resumed by the

owner. In the same way, not the smallest morsel of property belonging

to the proprietors of the house had been abstracted. The Oriental

noblemen had removed their own illuminated manuscript, and had removed

nothing else.

What did it mean? Taking the worldly point of view, it appeared to mean

that Mr. Godfrey had been the victim of some incomprehensible error,

committed by certain unknown men. A dark conspiracy was on foot in the

midst of us; and our beloved and innocent friend had been entangled in

its meshes. When the Christian hero of a hundred charitable victories

plunges into a pitfall that has been dug for him by mistake, oh, what a

warning it is to the rest of us to be unceasingly on our guard! How

soon may our own evil passions prove to be Oriental noblemen who pounce

on us unawares!

I could write pages of affectionate warning on this one theme, but

(alas!) I am not permitted to improve—I am condemned to narrate. My

wealthy relative’s cheque—henceforth, the incubus of my existence—warns

me that I have not done with this record of violence yet. We must leave

Mr. Godfrey to recover in Northumberland Street, and must follow the

proceedings of Mr. Luker at a later period of the day.

After leaving the bank, Mr. Luker had visited various parts of London

on business errands. Returning to his own residence, he found a letter

waiting for him, which was described as having been left a short time

previously by a boy. In this case, as in Mr. Godfrey’s case, the

handwriting was strange; but the name mentioned was the name of one of

Mr. Luker’s customers. His correspondent announced (writing in the

third person—apparently by the hand of a deputy) that he had been

unexpectedly summoned to London. He had just established himself in

lodgings in Alfred Place, Tottenham Court Road; and he desired to see

Mr. Luker immediately, on the subject of a purchase which he

contemplated making. The gentleman was an enthusiastic collector of

Oriental antiquities, and had been for many years a liberal patron of

the establishment in Lambeth. Oh, when shall we wean ourselves from the

worship of Mammon! Mr. Luker called a cab, and drove off instantly to

his liberal patron.

Exactly what had happened to Mr. Godfrey in Northumberland Street now

happened to Mr. Luker in Alfred Place. Once more the respectable man

answered the door, and showed the visitor upstairs into the back

drawing-room. There, again, lay the illuminated manuscript on a table.

Mr. Luker’s attention was absorbed, as Mr. Godfrey’s attention had been

absorbed, by this beautiful work of Indian art. He too was aroused from

his studies by a tawny naked arm round his throat, by a bandage over

his eyes, and by a gag in his mouth. He too was thrown prostrate and

searched to the skin. A longer interval had then elapsed than had

passed in the experience of Mr. Godfrey; but it had ended as before, in

the persons of the house suspecting something wrong, and going upstairs

to see what had happened. Precisely the same explanation which the

landlord in Northumberland Street had given to Mr. Godfrey, the

landlord in Alfred Place now gave to Mr. Luker. Both had been imposed

on in the same way by the plausible address and well-filled purse of

the respectable stranger, who introduced himself as acting for his

foreign friends. The one point of difference between the two cases

occurred when the scattered contents of Mr. Luker’s pockets were being

collected from the floor. His watch and purse were safe, but (less

fortunate than Mr. Godfrey) one of the loose papers that he carried

about him had been taken away. The paper in question acknowledged the

receipt of a valuable of great price which Mr. Luker had that day left

in the care of his bankers. This document would be useless for purposes

of fraud, inasmuch as it provided that the valuable should only be

given up on the personal application of the owner. As soon as he

recovered himself, Mr. Luker hurried to the bank, on the chance that

the thieves who had robbed him might ignorantly present themselves with

the receipt. Nothing had been seen of them when he arrived at the

establishment, and nothing was seen of them afterwards. Their

respectable English friend had (in the opinion of the bankers) looked

the receipt over before they attempted to make use of it, and had given

them the necessary warning in good time.

Information of both outrages was communicated to the police, and the

needful investigations were pursued, I believe, with great energy. The

authorities held that a robbery had been planned, on insufficient

information received by the thieves. They had been plainly not sure

whether Mr. Luker had, or had not, trusted the transmission of his

precious gem to another person; and poor polite Mr. Godfrey had paid

the penalty of having been seen accidentally speaking to him. Add to

this, that Mr. Godfrey’s absence from our Monday evening meeting had

been occasioned by a consultation of the authorities, at which he was

requested to assist—and all the explanations required being now given,

I may proceed with the simpler story of my own little personal

experiences in Montagu Square.

I was punctual to the luncheon hour on Tuesday. Reference to my diary

shows this to have been a chequered day—much in it to be devoutly

regretted, much in it to be devoutly thankful for.

Dear Aunt Verinder received me with her usual grace and kindness. But I

noticed, after a little while, that something was wrong. Certain

anxious looks escaped my aunt, all of which took the direction of her

daughter. I never see Rachel myself without wondering how it can be

that so insignificant-looking a person should be the child of such

distinguished parents as Sir John and Lady Verinder. On this occasion,

however, she not only disappointed—she really shocked me. There was an

absence of all lady-like restraint in her language and manner most

painful to see. She was possessed by some feverish excitement which

made her distressingly loud when she laughed, and sinfully wasteful and

capricious in what she ate and drank at lunch. I felt deeply for her

poor mother, even before the true state of the case had been

confidentially made known to me.

Luncheon over, my aunt said: “Remember what the doctor told you,

Rachel, about quieting yourself with a book after taking your meals.”

“I’ll go into the library, mamma,” she answered. “But if Godfrey calls,

mind I am told of it. I am dying for more news of him, after his

adventure in Northumberland Street.” She kissed her mother on the

forehead, and looked my way. “Good-bye, Clack,” she said, carelessly.

Her insolence roused no angry feeling in me; I only made a private

memorandum to pray for her.

When we were left by ourselves, my aunt told me the whole horrible

story of the Indian Diamond, which, I am happy to know, it is not

necessary to repeat here. She did not conceal from me that she would

have preferred keeping silence on the subject. But when her own

servants all knew of the loss of the Moonstone, and when some of the

circumstances had actually found their way into the newspapers—when

strangers were speculating whether there was any connection between

what had happened at Lady Verinder’s country house, and what had

happened in Northumberland Street and Alfred Place—concealment was not

to be thought of; and perfect frankness became a necessity as well as a

virtue.

Some persons, hearing what I now heard, would have been probably

overwhelmed with astonishment. For my own part, knowing Rachel’s spirit

to have been essentially unregenerate from her childhood upwards, I was

prepared for whatever my aunt could tell me on the subject of her

daughter. It might have gone on from bad to worse till it ended in

Murder; and I should still have said to myself, The natural result! oh,

dear, dear, the natural result! The one thing that _did_ shock me was

the course my aunt had taken under the circumstances. Here surely was a

case for a clergyman, if ever there was one yet! Lady Verinder had

thought it a case for a physician. All my poor aunt’s early life had

been passed in her father’s godless household. The natural result

again! Oh, dear, dear, the natural result again!

“The doctors recommend plenty of exercise and amusement for Rachel, and

strongly urge me to keep her mind as much as possible from dwelling on

the past,” said Lady Verinder.

“Oh, what heathen advice!” I thought to myself. “In this Christian

country, what heathen advice!”

My aunt went on, “I do my best to carry out my instructions. But this

strange adventure of Godfrey’s happens at a most unfortunate time.

Rachel has been incessantly restless and excited since she first heard

of it. She left me no peace till I had written and asked my nephew

Ablewhite to come here. She even feels an interest in the other person

who was roughly used—Mr. Luker, or some such name—though the man is, of

course, a total stranger to her.”

“Your knowledge of the world, dear aunt, is superior to mine,” I

suggested diffidently. “But there must be a reason surely for this

extraordinary conduct on Rachel’s part. She is keeping a sinful secret

from you and from everybody. May there not be something in these recent

events which threatens her secret with discovery?”

“Discovery?” repeated my aunt. “What can you possibly mean? Discovery

through Mr. Luker? Discovery through my nephew?”

As the word passed her lips, a special providence occurred. The servant

opened the door, and announced Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.

CHAPTER II

Mr. Godfrey followed the announcement of his name—as Mr. Godfrey does

everything else—exactly at the right time. He was not so close on the

servant’s heels as to startle us. He was not so far behind as to cause

us the double inconvenience of a pause and an open door. It is in the

completeness of his daily life that the true Christian appears. This

dear man was very complete.

“Go to Miss Verinder,” said my aunt, addressing the servant, “and tell

her Mr. Ablewhite is here.”

We both inquired after his health. We both asked him together whether

he felt like himself again, after his terrible adventure of the past

week. With perfect tact, he contrived to answer us at the same moment.

Lady Verinder had his reply in words. I had his charming smile.

“What,” he cried, with infinite tenderness, “have I done to deserve all

this sympathy? My dear aunt! my dear Miss Clack! I have merely been

mistaken for somebody else. I have only been blindfolded; I have only

been strangled; I have only been thrown flat on my back, on a very thin

carpet, covering a particularly hard floor. Just think how much worse

it might have been! I might have been murdered; I might have been

robbed. What have I lost? Nothing but Nervous Force—which the law

doesn’t recognise as property; so that, strictly speaking, I have lost

nothing at all. If I could have had my own way, I would have kept my

adventure to myself—I shrink from all this fuss and publicity. But Mr.

Luker made _his_ injuries public, and _my_ injuries, as the necessary

consequence, have been proclaimed in their turn. I have become the

property of the newspapers, until the gentle reader gets sick of the

subject. I am very sick indeed of it myself. May the gentle reader soon

be like me! And how is dear Rachel? Still enjoying the gaieties of

London? So glad to hear it! Miss Clack, I need all your indulgence. I

am sadly behind-hand with my Committee Work and my dear Ladies. But I

really do hope to look in at the Mothers’-Small-Clothes next week. Did

you make cheering progress at Monday’s Committee? Was the Board hopeful

about future prospects? And are we nicely off for Trousers?”

The heavenly gentleness of his smile made his apologies irresistible.

The richness of his deep voice added its own indescribable charm to the

interesting business question which he had just addressed to me. In

truth, we were almost _too_ nicely off for Trousers; we were quite

overwhelmed by them. I was just about to say so, when the door opened

again, and an element of worldly disturbance entered the room, in the

person of Miss Verinder.

She approached dear Mr. Godfrey at a most unladylike rate of speed,

with her hair shockingly untidy, and her face, what _I_ should call,

unbecomingly flushed.

“I am charmed to see you, Godfrey,” she said, addressing him, I grieve

to add, in the off-hand manner of one young man talking to another. “I

wish you had brought Mr. Luker with you. You and he (as long as our

present excitement lasts) are the two most interesting men in all

London. It’s morbid to say this; it’s unhealthy; it’s all that a

well-regulated mind like Miss Clack’s most instinctively shudders at.

Never mind that. Tell me the whole of the Northumberland Street story

directly. I know the newspapers have left some of it out.”

Even dear Mr. Godfrey partakes of the fallen nature which we all

inherit from Adam—it is a very small share of our human legacy, but,

alas! he has it. I confess it grieved me to see him take Rachel’s hand

in both of his own hands, and lay it softly on the left side of his

waistcoat. It was a direct encouragement to her reckless way of

talking, and her insolent reference to me.

“Dearest Rachel,” he said, in the same voice which had thrilled me when

he spoke of our prospects and our trousers, “the newspapers have told

you everything—and they have told it much better than I can.”

“Godfrey thinks we all make too much of the matter,” my aunt remarked.

“He has just been saying that he doesn’t care to speak of it.”

“Why?”

She put the question with a sudden flash in her eyes, and a sudden look

up into Mr. Godfrey’s face. On his side, he looked down at her with an

indulgence so injudicious and so ill-deserved, that I really felt

called on to interfere.

“Rachel, darling!” I remonstrated gently, “true greatness and true

courage are ever modest.”

“You are a very good fellow in your way, Godfrey,” she said—not taking

the smallest notice, observe, of me, and still speaking to her cousin

as if she was one young man addressing another. “But I am quite sure

you are not great; I don’t believe you possess any extraordinary

courage; and I am firmly persuaded—if you ever had any modesty—that

your lady-worshippers relieved you of that virtue a good many years

since. You have some private reason for not talking of your adventure

in Northumberland Street; and I mean to know it.”

“My reason is the simplest imaginable, and the most easily

acknowledged,” he answered, still bearing with her. “I am tired of the

subject.”

“You are tired of the subject? My dear Godfrey, I am going to make a

remark.”

“What is it?”

“You live a great deal too much in the society of women. And you have

contracted two very bad habits in consequence. You have learnt to talk

nonsense seriously, and you have got into a way of telling fibs for the

pleasure of telling them. You can’t go straight with your

lady-worshippers. I mean to make you go straight with _me_. Come, and

sit down. I am brimful of downright questions; and I expect you to be

brimful of downright answers.”

She actually dragged him across the room to a chair by the window,

where the light would fall on his face. I deeply feel being obliged to

report such language, and to describe such conduct. But, hemmed in, as

I am, between Mr. Franklin Blake’s cheque on one side and my own sacred

regard for truth on the other, what am I to do? I looked at my aunt.

She sat unmoved; apparently in no way disposed to interfere. I had

never noticed this kind of torpor in her before. It was, perhaps, the

reaction after the trying time she had had in the country. Not a

pleasant symptom to remark, be it what it might, at dear Lady

Verinder’s age, and with dear Lady Verinder’s autumnal exuberance of

figure.

In the meantime, Rachel had settled herself at the window with our

amiable and forbearing—our too forbearing—Mr. Godfrey. She began the

string of questions with which she had threatened him, taking no more

notice of her mother, or of myself, than if we had not been in the

room.

“Have the police done anything, Godfrey?”

“Nothing whatever.”

“It is certain, I suppose, that the three men who laid the trap for you

were the same three men who afterwards laid the trap for Mr. Luker?”

“Humanly speaking, my dear Rachel, there can be no doubt of it.”

“And not a trace of them has been discovered?”

“Not a trace.”

“It is thought—is it not?—that these three men are the three Indians

who came to our house in the country.”

“Some people think so.”

“Do you think so?”

“My dear Rachel, they blindfolded me before I could see their faces. I

know nothing whatever of the matter. How can I offer an opinion on it?”

Even the angelic gentleness of Mr. Godfrey was, you see, beginning to

give way at last under the persecution inflicted on him. Whether

unbridled curiosity, or ungovernable dread, dictated Miss Verinder’s

questions I do not presume to inquire. I only report that, on Mr.

Godfrey’s attempting to rise, after giving her the answer just

described, she actually took him by the two shoulders, and pushed him

back into his chair—Oh, don’t say this was immodest! don’t even hint

that the recklessness of guilty terror could alone account for such

conduct as I have described! We must not judge others. My Christian

friends, indeed, indeed, indeed, we must not judge others!

She went on with her questions, unabashed. Earnest Biblical students

will perhaps be reminded—as I was reminded—of the blinded children of

the devil, who went on with their orgies, unabashed, in the time before

the Flood.

“I want to know something about Mr. Luker, Godfrey.”

“I am again unfortunate, Rachel. No man knows less of Mr. Luker than I

do.”

“You never saw him before you and he met accidentally at the bank?”

“Never.”

“You have seen him since?”

“Yes. We have been examined together, as well as separately, to assist

the police.”

“Mr. Luker was robbed of a receipt which he had got from his

banker’s—was he not? What was the receipt for?”

“For a valuable gem which he had placed in the safe keeping of the

bank.”

“That’s what the newspapers say. It may be enough for the general

reader; but it is not enough for me. The banker’s receipt must have

mentioned what the gem was?”

“The banker’s receipt, Rachel—as I have heard it described—mentioned

nothing of the kind. A valuable gem, belonging to Mr. Luker; deposited

by Mr. Luker; sealed with Mr. Luker’s seal; and only to be given up on

Mr. Luker’s personal application. That was the form, and that is all I

know about it.”

She waited a moment, after he had said that. She looked at her mother,

and sighed. She looked back again at Mr. Godfrey, and went on.

“Some of our private affairs, at home,” she said, “seem to have got

into the newspapers?”

“I grieve to say, it is so.”

“And some idle people, perfect strangers to us, are trying to trace a

connexion between what happened at our house in Yorkshire and what has

happened since, here in London?”

“The public curiosity, in certain quarters, is, I fear, taking that

turn.”

“The people who say that the three unknown men who ill-used you and Mr.

Luker are the three Indians, also say that the valuable gem——”

There she stopped. She had become gradually, within the last few

moments, whiter and whiter in the face. The extraordinary blackness of

her hair made this paleness, by contrast, so ghastly to look at, that

we all thought she would faint, at the moment when she checked herself

in the middle of her question. Dear Mr. Godfrey made a second attempt

to leave his chair. My aunt entreated her to say no more. I followed my

aunt with a modest medicinal peace-offering, in the shape of a bottle

of salts. We none of us produced the slightest effect on her. “Godfrey,

stay where you are. Mamma, there is not the least reason to be alarmed

about me. Clack, you’re dying to hear the end of it—I won’t faint,

expressly to oblige _you_.”

Those were the exact words she used—taken down in my diary the moment I

got home. But, oh, don’t let us judge! My Christian friends, don’t let

us judge!

She turned once more to Mr. Godfrey. With an obstinacy dreadful to see,

she went back again to the place where she had checked herself, and

completed her question in these words:

“I spoke to you, a minute since, about what people were saying in

certain quarters. Tell me plainly, Godfrey, do they any of them say

that Mr. Luker’s valuable gem is—the Moonstone?”

As the name of the Indian Diamond passed her lips, I saw a change come

over my admirable friend. His complexion deepened. He lost the genial

suavity of manner which is one of his greatest charms. A noble

indignation inspired his reply.

“They _do_ say it,” he answered. “There are people who don’t hesitate

to accuse Mr. Luker of telling a falsehood to serve some private

interests of his own. He has over and over again solemnly declared

that, until this scandal assailed him, he had never even heard of the

Moonstone. And these vile people reply, without a shadow of proof to

justify them, He has his reasons for concealment; we decline to believe

him on his oath. Shameful! shameful!”

Rachel looked at him very strangely—I can’t well describe how—while he

was speaking. When he had done, she said, “Considering that Mr. Luker

is only a chance acquaintance of yours, you take up his cause, Godfrey,

rather warmly.”

My gifted friend made her one of the most truly evangelical answers I

ever heard in my life.

“I hope, Rachel, I take up the cause of all oppressed people rather

warmly,” he said.

The tone in which those words were spoken might have melted a stone.

But, oh dear, what is the hardness of stone? Nothing, compared to the

hardness of the unregenerate human heart! She sneered. I blush to

record it—she sneered at him to his face.

“Keep your noble sentiments for your Ladies’ Committees, Godfrey. I am

certain that the scandal which has assailed Mr. Luker, has not spared

You.”

Even my aunt’s torpor was roused by those words.

“My dear Rachel,” she remonstrated, “you have really no right to say

that!”

“I mean no harm, mamma—I mean good. Have a moment’s patience with me,

and you will see.”

She looked back at Mr. Godfrey, with what appeared to be a sudden pity

for him. She went the length—the very unladylike length—of taking him

by the hand.

“I am certain,” she said, “that I have found out the true reason of

your unwillingness to speak of this matter before my mother and before

me. An unlucky accident has associated you in people’s minds with Mr.

Luker. You have told me what scandal says of _him_. What does scandal

say of _you?_”

Even at the eleventh hour, dear Mr. Godfrey—always ready to return good

for evil—tried to spare her.

“Don’t ask me!” he said. “It’s better forgotten, Rachel—it is, indeed.”

“I _will_ hear it!” she cried out, fiercely, at the top of her voice.

“Tell her, Godfrey!” entreated my aunt. “Nothing can do her such harm

as your silence is doing now!”

Mr. Godfrey’s fine eyes filled with tears. He cast one last appealing

look at her—and then he spoke the fatal words:

“If you will have it, Rachel—scandal says that the Moonstone is in

pledge to Mr. Luker, and that I am the man who has pawned it.”

She started to her feet with a scream. She looked backwards and

forwards from Mr. Godfrey to my aunt, and from my aunt to Mr. Godfrey,

in such a frantic manner that I really thought she had gone mad.

“Don’t speak to me! Don’t touch me!” she exclaimed, shrinking back from

all of us (I declare like some hunted animal!) into a corner of the

room. “This is my fault! I must set it right. I have sacrificed

myself—I had a right to do that, if I liked. But to let an innocent man

be ruined; to keep a secret which destroys his character for life—Oh,

good God, it’s too horrible! I can’t bear it!”

My aunt half rose from her chair, then suddenly sat down again. She

called to me faintly, and pointed to a little phial in her work-box.

“Quick!” she whispered. “Six drops, in water. Don’t let Rachel see.”

Under other circumstances, I should have thought this strange. There

was no time now to think—there was only time to give the medicine. Dear

Mr. Godfrey unconsciously assisted me in concealing what I was about

from Rachel, by speaking composing words to her at the other end of the

room.

“Indeed, indeed, you exaggerate,” I heard him say. “My reputation

stands too high to be destroyed by a miserable passing scandal like

this. It will be all forgotten in another week. Let us never speak of

it again.” She was perfectly inaccessible, even to such generosity as

this. She went on from bad to worse.

“I must, and will, stop it,” she said. “Mamma! hear what I say. Miss

Clack! hear what I say. I know the hand that took the Moonstone. I

know—” she laid a strong emphasis on the words; she stamped her foot in

the rage that possessed her—“_I know that Godfrey Ablewhite is

innocent!_ Take me to the magistrate, Godfrey! Take me to the

magistrate, and I will swear it!”

My aunt caught me by the hand, and whispered, “Stand between us for a

minute or two. Don’t let Rachel see me.” I noticed a bluish tinge in

her face which alarmed me. She saw I was startled. “The drops will put

me right in a minute or two,” she said, and so closed her eyes, and

waited a little.

While this was going on, I heard dear Mr. Godfrey still gently

remonstrating.

“You must not appear publicly in such a thing as this,” he said.

“_Your_ reputation, dearest Rachel, is something too pure and too

sacred to be trifled with.”

“_My_ reputation!” She burst out laughing. “Why, I am accused, Godfrey,

as well as you. The best detective officer in England declares that I

have stolen my own Diamond. Ask him what he thinks—and he will tell you

that I have pledged the Moonstone to pay my private debts!” She

stopped, ran across the room—and fell on her knees at her mother’s

feet. “Oh mamma! mamma! mamma! I must be mad—mustn’t I?—not to own the

truth _now!_” She was too vehement to notice her mother’s condition—she

was on her feet again, and back with Mr. Godfrey, in an instant. “I

won’t let you—I won’t let any innocent man—be accused and disgraced

through my fault. If you won’t take me before the magistrate, draw out

a declaration of your innocence on paper, and I will sign it. Do as I

tell you, Godfrey, or I’ll write it to the newspapers—I’ll go out, and

cry it in the streets!”

We will not say this was the language of remorse—we will say it was the

language of hysterics. Indulgent Mr. Godfrey pacified her by taking a

sheet of paper, and drawing out the declaration. She signed it in a

feverish hurry. “Show it everywhere—don’t think of _me_,” she said, as

she gave it to him. “I am afraid, Godfrey, I have not done you justice,

hitherto, in my thoughts. You are more unselfish—you are a better man

than I believed you to be. Come here when you can, and I will try and

repair the wrong I have done you.”

She gave him her hand. Alas, for our fallen nature! Alas, for Mr.

Godfrey! He not only forgot himself so far as to kiss her hand—he

adopted a gentleness of tone in answering her which, in such a case,

was little better than a compromise with sin. “I will come, dearest,”

he said, “on condition that we don’t speak of this hateful subject

again.” Never had I seen and heard our Christian Hero to less advantage

than on this occasion.

Before another word could be said by anybody, a thundering knock at the

street door startled us all. I looked through the window, and saw the

World, the Flesh, and the Devil waiting before the house—as typified in

a carriage and horses, a powdered footman, and three of the most

audaciously dressed women I ever beheld in my life.

Rachel started, and composed herself. She crossed the room to her

mother.

“They have come to take me to the flower-show,” she said. “One word,

mamma, before I go. I have not distressed you, have I?”

(Is the bluntness of moral feeling which could ask such a question as

that, after what had just happened, to be pitied or condemned? I like

to lean towards mercy. Let us pity it.)

The drops had produced their effect. My poor aunt’s complexion was like

itself again. “No, no, my dear,” she said. “Go with our friends, and

enjoy yourself.”

Her daughter stooped, and kissed her. I had left the window, and was

near the door, when Rachel approached it to go out. Another change had

come over her—she was in tears. I looked with interest at the momentary

softening of that obdurate heart. I felt inclined to say a few earnest

words. Alas! my well-meant sympathy only gave offence. “What do you

mean by pitying me?” she asked in a bitter whisper, as she passed to

the door. “Don’t you see how happy I am? I’m going to the flower-show,

Clack; and I’ve got the prettiest bonnet in London.” She completed the

hollow mockery of that address by blowing me a kiss—and so left the

room.

I wish I could describe in words the compassion I felt for this

miserable and misguided girl. But I am almost as poorly provided with

words as with money. Permit me to say—my heart bled for her.

Returning to my aunt’s chair, I observed dear Mr. Godfrey searching for

something softly, here and there, in different parts of the room.

Before I could offer to assist him he had found what he wanted. He came

back to my aunt and me, with his declaration of innocence in one hand,

and with a box of matches in the other.

“Dear aunt, a little conspiracy!” he said. “Dear Miss Clack, a pious

fraud which even your high moral rectitude will excuse! Will you leave

Rachel to suppose that I accept the generous self-sacrifice which has

signed this paper? And will you kindly bear witness that I destroy it

in your presence, before I leave the house?” He kindled a match, and,

lighting the paper, laid it to burn in a plate on the table. “Any

trifling inconvenience that I may suffer is as nothing,” he remarked,

“compared with the importance of preserving that pure name from the

contaminating contact of the world. There! We have reduced it to a

little harmless heap of ashes; and our dear impulsive Rachel will never

know what we have done! How do you feel? My precious friends, how do

you feel? For my poor part, I am as light-hearted as a boy!”

He beamed on us with his beautiful smile; he held out a hand to my

aunt, and a hand to me. I was too deeply affected by his noble conduct

to speak. I closed my eyes; I put his hand, in a kind of spiritual

self-forgetfulness, to my lips. He murmured a soft remonstrance. Oh the

ecstasy, the pure, unearthly ecstasy of that moment! I sat—I hardly

know on what—quite lost in my own exalted feelings. When I opened my

eyes again, it was like descending from heaven to earth. There was

nobody but my aunt in the room. He had gone.

I should like to stop here—I should like to close my narrative with the

record of Mr. Godfrey’s noble conduct. Unhappily there is more, much

more, which the unrelenting pecuniary pressure of Mr. Blake’s cheque

obliges me to tell. The painful disclosures which were to reveal

themselves in my presence, during that Tuesday’s visit to Montagu

Square, were not at an end yet.

Finding myself alone with Lady Verinder, I turned naturally to the

subject of her health; touching delicately on the strange anxiety which

she had shown to conceal her indisposition, and the remedy applied to

it, from the observation of her daughter.

My aunt’s reply greatly surprised me.

“Drusilla,” she said (if I have not already mentioned that my Christian

name is Drusilla, permit me to mention it now), “you are touching—quite

innocently, I know—on a very distressing subject.”

I rose immediately. Delicacy left me but one alternative—the

alternative, after first making my apologies, of taking my leave. Lady

Verinder stopped me, and insisted on my sitting down again.

“You have surprised a secret,” she said, “which I had confided to my

sister Mrs. Ablewhite, and to my lawyer Mr. Bruff, and to no one else.

I can trust in their discretion; and I am sure, when I tell you the

circumstances, I can trust in yours. Have you any pressing engagement,

Drusilla? or is your time your own this afternoon?”

It is needless to say that my time was entirely at my aunt’s disposal.

“Keep me company then,” she said, “for another hour. I have something

to tell you which I believe you will be sorry to hear. And I shall have

a service to ask of you afterwards, if you don’t object to assist me.”

It is again needless to say that, so far from objecting, I was all

eagerness to assist her.

“You can wait here,” she went on, “till Mr. Bruff comes at five. And

you can be one of the witnesses, Drusilla, when I sign my Will.”

Her Will! I thought of the drops which I had seen in her work-box. I

thought of the bluish tinge which I had noticed in her complexion. A

light which was not of this world—a light shining prophetically from an

unmade grave—dawned on my mind. My aunt’s secret was a secret no

longer.

CHAPTER III

Consideration for poor Lady Verinder forbade me even to hint that I had

guessed the melancholy truth, before she opened her lips. I waited her

pleasure in silence; and, having privately arranged to say a few

sustaining words at the first convenient opportunity, felt prepared for

any duty that could claim me, no matter how painful it might be.

“I have been seriously ill, Drusilla, for some time past,” my aunt

began. “And, strange to say, without knowing it myself.”

I thought of the thousands and thousands of perishing human creatures

who were all at that moment spiritually ill, without knowing it

themselves. And I greatly feared that my poor aunt might be one of the

number. “Yes, dear,” I said, sadly. “Yes.”

“I brought Rachel to London, as you know, for medical advice,” she went

on. “I thought it right to consult two doctors.”

Two doctors! And, oh me (in Rachel’s state), not one clergyman! “Yes,

dear?” I said once more. “Yes?”

“One of the two medical men,” proceeded my aunt, “was a stranger to me.

The other had been an old friend of my husband’s, and had always felt a

sincere interest in me for my husband’s sake. After prescribing for

Rachel, he said he wished to speak to me privately in another room. I

expected, of course, to receive some special directions for the

management of my daughter’s health. To my surprise, he took me gravely

by the hand, and said, ‘I have been looking at you, Lady Verinder, with

a professional as well as a personal interest. You are, I am afraid,

far more urgently in need of medical advice than your daughter.’ He put

some questions to me, which I was at first inclined to treat lightly

enough, until I observed that my answers distressed him. It ended in

his making an appointment to come and see me, accompanied by a medical

friend, on the next day, at an hour when Rachel would not be at home.

The result of that visit—most kindly and gently conveyed to

me—satisfied both the physicians that there had been precious time

lost, which could never be regained, and that my case had now passed

beyond the reach of their art. For more than two years I have been

suffering under an insidious form of heart disease, which, without any

symptoms to alarm me, has, by little and little, fatally broken me

down. I may live for some months, or I may die before another day has

passed over my head—the doctors cannot, and dare not, speak more

positively than this. It would be vain to say, my dear, that I have not

had some miserable moments since my real situation has been made known

to me. But I am more resigned than I was, and I am doing my best to set

my worldly affairs in order. My one great anxiety is that Rachel should

be kept in ignorance of the truth. If she knew it, she would at once

attribute my broken health to anxiety about the Diamond, and would

reproach herself bitterly, poor child, for what is in no sense her

fault. Both the doctors agree that the mischief began two, if not three

years since. I am sure you will keep my secret, Drusilla—for I am sure

I see sincere sorrow and sympathy for me in your face.”

Sorrow and sympathy! Oh, what Pagan emotions to expect from a Christian

Englishwoman anchored firmly on her faith!

Little did my poor aunt imagine what a gush of devout thankfulness

thrilled through me as she approached the close of her melancholy

story. Here was a career of usefulness opened before me! Here was a

beloved relative and perishing fellow-creature, on the eve of the great

change, utterly unprepared; and led, providentially led, to reveal her

situation to Me! How can I describe the joy with which I now remembered

that the precious clerical friends on whom I could rely, were to be

counted, not by ones or twos, but by tens and twenties. I took my aunt

in my arms—my overflowing tenderness was not to be satisfied, _now_,

with anything less than an embrace. “Oh!” I said to her, fervently,

“the indescribable interest with which you inspire me! Oh! the good I

mean to do you, dear, before we part!” After another word or two of

earnest prefatory warning, I gave her her choice of three precious

friends, all plying the work of mercy from morning to night in her own

neighbourhood; all equally inexhaustible in exhortation; all

affectionately ready to exercise their gifts at a word from _me_. Alas!

the result was far from encouraging. Poor Lady Verinder looked puzzled

and frightened, and met everything I could say to her with the purely

worldly objection that she was not strong enough to face strangers. I

yielded—for the moment only, of course. My large experience (as Reader

and Visitor, under not less, first and last, than fourteen beloved

clerical friends) informed me that this was another case for

preparation by books. I possessed a little library of works, all

suitable to the present emergency, all calculated to arouse, convince,

prepare, enlighten, and fortify my aunt. “You will read, dear, won’t

you?” I said, in my most winning way. “You will read, if I bring you my

own precious books? Turned down at all the right places, aunt. And

marked in pencil where you are to stop and ask yourself, ‘Does this

apply to me?’” Even that simple appeal—so absolutely heathenising is

the influence of the world—appeared to startle my aunt. She said, “I

will do what I can, Drusilla, to please you,” with a look of surprise,

which was at once instructive and terrible to see. Not a moment was to

be lost. The clock on the mantelpiece informed me that I had just time

to hurry home; to provide myself with a first series of selected

readings (say a dozen only); and to return in time to meet the lawyer,

and witness Lady Verinder’s Will. Promising faithfully to be back by

five o’clock, I left the house on my errand of mercy.

When no interests but my own are involved, I am humbly content to get

from place to place by the omnibus. Permit me to give an idea of my

devotion to my aunt’s interests by recording that, on this occasion, I

committed the prodigality of taking a cab.

I drove home, selected and marked my first series of readings, and

drove back to Montagu Square, with a dozen works in a carpet-bag, the

like of which, I firmly believe, are not to be found in the literature

of any other country in Europe. I paid the cabman exactly his fare. He

received it with an oath; upon which I instantly gave him a tract. If I

had presented a pistol at his head, this abandoned wretch could hardly

have exhibited greater consternation. He jumped up on his box, and,

with profane exclamations of dismay, drove off furiously. Quite

useless, I am happy to say! I sowed the good seed, in spite of him, by

throwing a second tract in at the window of the cab.

The servant who answered the door—not the person with the cap-ribbons,

to my great relief, but the footman—informed me that the doctor had

called, and was still shut up with Lady Verinder. Mr. Bruff, the

lawyer, had arrived a minute since and was waiting in the library. I

was shown into the library to wait too.

Mr. Bruff looked surprised to see me. He is the family solicitor, and

we had met more than once, on previous occasions, under Lady Verinder’s

roof. A man, I grieve to say, grown old and grizzled in the service of

the world. A man who, in his hours of business, was the chosen prophet

of Law and Mammon; and who, in his hours of leisure, was equally

capable of reading a novel and of tearing up a tract.

“Have you come to stay here, Miss Clack?” he asked, with a look at my

carpet-bag.

To reveal the contents of my precious bag to such a person as this

would have been simply to invite an outburst of profanity. I lowered

myself to his own level, and mentioned my business in the house.

“My aunt has informed me that she is about to sign her Will,” I

answered. “She has been so good as to ask me to be one of the

witnesses.”

“Aye? aye? Well, Miss Clack, you will do. You are over twenty-one, and

you have not the slightest pecuniary interest in Lady Verinder’s Will.”

Not the slightest pecuniary interest in Lady Verinder’s Will. Oh, how

thankful I felt when I heard that! If my aunt, possessed of thousands,

had remembered poor Me, to whom five pounds is an object—if my name had

appeared in the Will, with a little comforting legacy attached to it—my

enemies might have doubted the motive which had loaded me with the

choicest treasures of my library, and had drawn upon my failing

resources for the prodigal expenses of a cab. Not the cruellest scoffer

of them all could doubt now. Much better as it was! Oh, surely, surely,

much better as it was!

I was aroused from these consoling reflections by the voice of Mr.

Bruff. My meditative silence appeared to weigh upon the spirits of this

worldling, and to force him, as it were, into talking to me against his

own will.

“Well, Miss Clack, what’s the last news in the charitable circles? How

is your friend Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, after the mauling he got from the

rogues in Northumberland Street? Egad! they’re telling a pretty story

about that charitable gentleman at my club!”

I had passed over the manner in which this person had remarked that I

was more than twenty-one, and that I had no pecuniary interest in my

aunt’s Will. But the tone in which he alluded to dear Mr. Godfrey was

too much for my forbearance. Feeling bound, after what had passed in my

presence that afternoon, to assert the innocence of my admirable

friend, whenever I found it called in question—I own to having also

felt bound to include in the accomplishment of this righteous purpose,

a stinging castigation in the case of Mr. Bruff.

“I live very much out of the world,” I said; “and I don’t possess the

advantage, sir, of belonging to a club. But I happen to know the story

to which you allude; and I also know that a viler falsehood than that

story never was told.”

“Yes, yes, Miss Clack—you believe in your friend. Natural enough. Mr.

Godfrey Ablewhite won’t find the world in general quite so easy to

convince as a committee of charitable ladies. Appearances are dead

against him. He was in the house when the Diamond was lost. And he was

the first person in the house to go to London afterwards. Those are

ugly circumstances, ma’am, viewed by the light of later events.”

I ought, I know, to have set him right before he went any farther. I

ought to have told him that he was speaking in ignorance of a testimony

to Mr. Godfrey’s innocence, offered by the only person who was

undeniably competent to speak from a positive knowledge of the subject.

Alas! the temptation to lead the lawyer artfully on to his own

discomfiture was too much for me. I asked what he meant by “later

events”—with an appearance of the utmost innocence.

“By later events, Miss Clack, I mean events in which the Indians are

concerned,” proceeded Mr. Bruff, getting more and more superior to poor

Me, the longer he went on. “What do the Indians do, the moment they are

let out of the prison at Frizinghall? They go straight to London, and

fix on Mr. Luker. What follows? Mr. Luker feels alarmed for the safety

of ‘a valuable of great price,’ which he has got in the house. He

lodges it privately (under a general description) in his bankers’

strongroom. Wonderfully clever of him: but the Indians are just as

clever on their side. They have their suspicions that the ‘valuable of

great price’ is being shifted from one place to another; and they hit

on a singularly bold and complete way of clearing those suspicions up.

Whom do they seize and search? Not Mr. Luker only—which would be

intelligible enough—but Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite as well. Why? Mr.

Ablewhite’s explanation is, that they acted on blind suspicion, after

seeing him accidentally speaking to Mr. Luker. Absurd! Half-a-dozen

other people spoke to Mr. Luker that morning. Why were they not

followed home too, and decoyed into the trap? No! no! The plain

inference is, that Mr. Ablewhite had his private interest in the

‘valuable’ as well as Mr. Luker, and that the Indians were so uncertain

as to which of the two had the disposal of it, that there was no

alternative but to search them both. Public opinion says that, Miss

Clack. And public opinion, on this occasion, is not easily refuted.”

He said those last words, looking so wonderfully wise in his own

worldly conceit, that I really (to my shame be it spoken) could not

resist leading him a little farther still, before I overwhelmed him

with the truth.

“I don’t presume to argue with a clever lawyer like you,” I said. “But

is it quite fair, sir, to Mr. Ablewhite to pass over the opinion of the

famous London police officer who investigated this case? Not the shadow

of a suspicion rested upon anybody but Miss Verinder, in the mind of

Sergeant Cuff.”

“Do you mean to tell me, Miss Clack, that you agree with the Sergeant?”

“I judge nobody, sir, and I offer no opinion.”

“And I commit both those enormities, ma’am. I judge the Sergeant to

have been utterly wrong; and I offer the opinion that, if he had known

Rachel’s character as I know it, he would have suspected everybody in

the house but _her_. I admit that she has her faults—she is secret, and

self-willed; odd and wild, and unlike other girls of her age. But true

as steel, and high-minded and generous to a fault. If the plainest

evidence in the world pointed one way, and if nothing but Rachel’s word

of honour pointed the other, I would take her word before the evidence,

lawyer as I am! Strong language, Miss Clack; but I mean it.”

“Would you object to illustrate your meaning, Mr. Bruff, so that I may

be sure I understand it? Suppose you found Miss Verinder quite

unaccountably interested in what has happened to Mr. Ablewhite and Mr.

Luker? Suppose she asked the strangest questions about this dreadful

scandal, and displayed the most ungovernable agitation when she found

out the turn it was taking?”

“Suppose anything you please, Miss Clack, it wouldn’t shake my belief

in Rachel Verinder by a hair’s-breadth.”

“She is so absolutely to be relied on as that?”

“So absolutely to be relied on as that.”

“Then permit me to inform you, Mr. Bruff, that Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite

was in this house not two hours since, and that his entire innocence of

all concern in the disappearance of the Moonstone was proclaimed by

Miss Verinder herself, in the strongest language I ever heard used by a

young lady in my life.”

I enjoyed the triumph—the unholy triumph, I fear I must admit—of seeing

Mr. Bruff utterly confounded and overthrown by a few plain words from

Me. He started to his feet, and stared at me in silence. I kept my

seat, undisturbed, and related the whole scene as it had occurred. “And

what do you say about Mr. Ablewhite _now?_” I asked, with the utmost

possible gentleness, as soon as I had done.

“If Rachel has testified to his innocence, Miss Clack, I don’t scruple

to say that I believe in his innocence as firmly as you do. I have been

misled by appearances, like the rest of the world; and I will make the

best atonement I can, by publicly contradicting the scandal which has

assailed your friend wherever I meet with it. In the meantime, allow me

to congratulate you on the masterly manner in which you have opened the

full fire of your batteries on me at the moment when I least expected

it. You would have done great things in my profession, ma’am, if you

had happened to be a man.”

With those words he turned away from me, and began walking irritably up

and down the room.

I could see plainly that the new light I had thrown on the subject had

greatly surprised and disturbed him. Certain expressions dropped from

his lips, as he became more and more absorbed in his own thoughts,

which suggested to my mind the abominable view that he had hitherto

taken of the mystery of the lost Moonstone. He had not scrupled to

suspect dear Mr. Godfrey of the infamy of stealing the Diamond, and to

attribute Rachel’s conduct to a generous resolution to conceal the

crime. On Miss Verinder’s own authority—a perfectly unassailable

authority, as you are aware, in the estimation of Mr. Bruff—that

explanation of the circumstances was now shown to be utterly wrong. The

perplexity into which I had plunged this high legal authority was so

overwhelming that he was quite unable to conceal it from notice. “What

a case!” I heard him say to himself, stopping at the window in his

walk, and drumming on the glass with his fingers. “It not only defies

explanation, it’s even beyond conjecture.”

There was nothing in these words which made any reply at all needful,

on my part—and yet, I answered them! It seems hardly credible that I

should not have been able to let Mr. Bruff alone, even now. It seems

almost beyond mere mortal perversity that I should have discovered, in

what he had just said, a new opportunity of making myself personally

disagreeable to him. But—ah, my friends! nothing is beyond mortal

perversity; and anything is credible when our fallen natures get the

better of us!

“Pardon me for intruding on your reflections,” I said to the

unsuspecting Mr. Bruff. “But surely there is a conjecture to make which

has not occurred to us yet.”

“Maybe, Miss Clack. I own I don’t know what it is.”

“Before I was so fortunate, sir, as to convince you of Mr. Ablewhite’s

innocence, you mentioned it as one of the reasons for suspecting him,

that he was in the house at the time when the Diamond was lost. Permit

me to remind you that Mr. Franklin Blake was also in the house at the

time when the Diamond was lost.”

The old worldling left the window, took a chair exactly opposite to

mine, and looked at me steadily, with a hard and vicious smile.

“You are not so good a lawyer, Miss Clack,” he remarked in a meditative

manner, “as I supposed. You don’t know how to let well alone.”

“I am afraid I fail to follow you, Mr. Bruff,” I said, modestly.

“It won’t do, Miss Clack—it really won’t do a second time. Franklin

Blake is a prime favourite of mine, as you are well aware. But that

doesn’t matter. I’ll adopt your view, on this occasion, before you have

time to turn round on me. You’re quite right, ma’am. I have suspected

Mr. Ablewhite, on grounds which abstractedly justify suspecting Mr.

Blake too. Very good—let’s suspect them together. It’s quite in his

character, we will say, to be capable of stealing the Moonstone. The

only question is, whether it was his interest to do so.”

“Mr. Franklin Blake’s debts,” I remarked, “are matters of family

notoriety.”

“And Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite’s debts have not arrived at that stage of

development yet. Quite true. But there happen to be two difficulties in

the way of your theory, Miss Clack. I manage Franklin Blake’s affairs,

and I beg to inform you that the vast majority of his creditors

(knowing his father to be a rich man) are quite content to charge

interest on their debts, and to wait for their money. There is the

first difficulty—which is tough enough. You will find the second

tougher still. I have it on the authority of Lady Verinder herself,

that her daughter was ready to marry Franklin Blake, before that

infernal Indian Diamond disappeared from the house. She had drawn him

on and put him off again, with the coquetry of a young girl. But she

had confessed to her mother that she loved cousin Franklin, and her

mother had trusted cousin Franklin with the secret. So there he was,

Miss Clack, with his creditors content to wait, and with the certain

prospect before him of marrying an heiress. By all means consider him a

scoundrel; but tell me, if you please, why he should steal the

Moonstone?”

“The human heart is unsearchable,” I said gently. “Who is to fathom

it?”

“In other words, ma’am—though he hadn’t the shadow of a reason for

taking the Diamond—he might have taken it, nevertheless, through

natural depravity. Very well. Say he did. Why the devil——”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Bruff. If I hear the devil referred to in that

manner, I must leave the room.”

“I beg _your_ pardon, Miss Clack—I’ll be more careful in my choice of

language for the future. All I meant to ask was this. Why—even

supposing he did take the Diamond—should Franklin Blake make himself

the most prominent person in the house in trying to recover it? You may

tell me he cunningly did that to divert suspicion from himself. I

answer that he had no need to divert suspicion—because nobody suspected

him. He first steals the Moonstone (without the slightest reason)

through natural depravity; and he then acts a part, in relation to the

loss of the jewel, which there is not the slightest necessity to act,

and which leads to his mortally offending the young lady who would

otherwise have married him. That is the monstrous proposition which you

are driven to assert, if you attempt to associate the disappearance of

the Moonstone with Franklin Blake. No, no, Miss Clack! After what has

passed here today, between us two, the dead-lock, in this case, is

complete. Rachel’s own innocence is (as her mother knows, and as I

know) beyond a doubt. Mr. Ablewhite’s innocence is equally certain—or

Rachel would never have testified to it. And Franklin Blake’s

innocence, as you have just seen, unanswerably asserts itself. On the

one hand, we are morally certain of all these things. And, on the other

hand, we are equally sure that somebody has brought the Moonstone to

London, and that Mr. Luker, or his banker, is in private possession of

it at this moment. What is the use of my experience, what is the use of

any person’s experience, in such a case as that? It baffles me; it

baffles you, it baffles everybody.”

No—not everybody. It had not baffled Sergeant Cuff. I was about to

mention this, with all possible mildness, and with every necessary

protest against being supposed to cast a slur upon Rachel—when the

servant came in to say that the doctor had gone, and that my aunt was

waiting to receive us.

This stopped the discussion. Mr. Bruff collected his papers, looking a

little exhausted by the demands which our conversation had made on him.

I took up my bag-full of precious publications, feeling as if I could

have gone on talking for hours. We proceeded in silence to Lady

Verinder’s room.

Permit me to add here, before my narrative advances to other events,

that I have not described what passed between the lawyer and me,

without having a definite object in view. I am ordered to include in my

contribution to the shocking story of the Moonstone a plain disclosure,

not only of the turn which suspicion took, but even of the names of the

persons on whom suspicion rested, at the time when the Indian Diamond

was believed to be in London. A report of my conversation in the

library with Mr. Bruff appeared to me to be exactly what was wanted to

answer this purpose—while, at the same time, it possessed the great

moral advantage of rendering a sacrifice of sinful self-esteem

essentially necessary on my part. I have been obliged to acknowledge

that my fallen nature got the better of me. In making that humiliating

confession, _I_ get the better of my fallen nature. The moral balance

is restored; the spiritual atmosphere feels clear once more. Dear

friends, we may go on again.

CHAPTER IV

The signing of the Will was a much shorter matter than I had

anticipated. It was hurried over, to my thinking, in indecent haste.

Samuel, the footman, was sent for to act as second witness—and the pen

was put at once into my aunt’s hand. I felt strongly urged to say a few

appropriate words on this solemn occasion. But Mr. Bruff’s manner

convinced me that it was wisest to check the impulse while he was in

the room. In less than two minutes it was all over—and Samuel

(unbenefited by what I might have said) had gone downstairs again.

Mr. Bruff folded up the Will, and then looked my way; apparently

wondering whether I did or did not mean to leave him alone with my

aunt. I had my mission of mercy to fulfil, and my bag of precious

publications ready on my lap. He might as well have expected to move

St. Paul’s Cathedral by looking at it, as to move Me. There was one

merit about him (due no doubt to his worldly training) which I have no

wish to deny. He was quick at seeing things. I appeared to produce

almost the same impression on him which I had produced on the cabman.

_He_ too uttered a profane expression, and withdrew in a violent hurry,

and left me mistress of the field.

As soon as we were alone, my aunt reclined on the sofa, and then

alluded, with some appearance of confusion, to the subject of her Will.

“I hope you won’t think yourself neglected, Drusilla,” she said. “I

mean to _give_ you your little legacy, my dear, with my own hand.”

Here was a golden opportunity! I seized it on the spot. In other words,

I instantly opened my bag, and took out the top publication. It proved

to be an early edition—only the twenty-fifth—of the famous anonymous

work (believed to be by precious Miss Bellows), entitled _The Serpent

at Home_. The design of the book—with which the worldly reader may not

be acquainted—is to show how the Evil One lies in wait for us in all

the most apparently innocent actions of our daily lives. The chapters

best adapted to female perusal are “Satan in the Hair Brush;” “Satan

behind the Looking Glass;” “Satan under the Tea Table;” “Satan out of

the Window”—and many others.

“Give your attention, dear aunt, to this precious book—and you will

give me all I ask.” With those words, I handed it to her open, at a

marked passage—one continuous burst of burning eloquence! Subject:

Satan among the Sofa Cushions.

Poor Lady Verinder (reclining thoughtlessly on her own sofa cushions)

glanced at the book, and handed it back to me looking more confused

than ever.

“I’m afraid, Drusilla,” she said, “I must wait till I am a little

better, before I can read that. The doctor——”

The moment she mentioned the doctor’s name, I knew what was coming.

Over and over again in my past experience among my perishing

fellow-creatures, the members of the notoriously infidel profession of

Medicine had stepped between me and my mission of mercy—on the

miserable pretence that the patient wanted quiet, and that the

disturbing influence of all others which they most dreaded, was the

influence of Miss Clack and her Books. Precisely the same blinded

materialism (working treacherously behind my back) now sought to rob me

of the only right of property that my poverty could claim—my right of

spiritual property in my perishing aunt.

“The doctor tells me,” my poor misguided relative went on, “that I am

not so well today. He forbids me to see any strangers; and he orders

me, if I read at all, only to read the lightest and the most amusing

books. ‘Do nothing, Lady Verinder, to weary your head, or to quicken

your pulse’—those were his last words, Drusilla, when he left me

today.”

There was no help for it but to yield again—for the moment only, as

before. Any open assertion of the infinitely superior importance of

such a ministry as mine, compared with the ministry of the medical man,

would only have provoked the doctor to practise on the human weakness

of his patient, and to threaten to throw up the case. Happily, there

are more ways than one of sowing the good seed, and few persons are

better versed in those ways than myself.

“You might feel stronger, dear, in an hour or two,” I said. “Or you

might wake, tomorrow morning, with a sense of something wanting, and

even this unpretending volume might be able to supply it. You will let

me leave the book, aunt? The doctor can hardly object to that!”

I slipped it under the sofa cushions, half in, and half out, close by

her handkerchief, and her smelling-bottle. Every time her hand searched

for either of these, it would touch the book; and, sooner or later (who

knows?) the book might touch _her_. After making this arrangement, I

thought it wise to withdraw. “Let me leave you to repose, dear aunt; I

will call again tomorrow.” I looked accidentally towards the window as

I said that. It was full of flowers, in boxes and pots. Lady Verinder

was extravagantly fond of these perishable treasures, and had a habit

of rising every now and then, and going to look at them and smell them.

A new idea flashed across my mind. “Oh! may I take a flower?” I

said—and got to the window unsuspected, in that way. Instead of taking

away a flower, I added one, in the shape of another book from my bag,

which I left, to surprise my aunt, among the geraniums and roses. The

happy thought followed, “Why not do the same for her, poor dear, in

every other room that she enters?” I immediately said good-bye; and,

crossing the hall, slipped into the library. Samuel, coming up to let

me out, and supposing I had gone, went downstairs again. On the library

table I noticed two of the “amusing books” which the infidel doctor had

recommended. I instantly covered them from sight with two of my own

precious publications. In the breakfast-room I found my aunt’s

favourite canary singing in his cage. She was always in the habit of

feeding the bird herself. Some groundsel was strewed on a table which

stood immediately under the cage. I put a book among the groundsel. In

the drawing-room I found more cheering opportunities of emptying my

bag. My aunt’s favourite musical pieces were on the piano. I slipped in

two more books among the music. I disposed of another in the back

drawing-room, under some unfinished embroidery, which I knew to be of

Lady Verinder’s working. A third little room opened out of the back

drawing-room, from which it was shut off by curtains instead of a door.

My aunt’s plain old-fashioned fan was on the chimney-piece. I opened my

ninth book at a very special passage, and put the fan in as a marker,

to keep the place. The question then came, whether I should go higher

still, and try the bedroom floor—at the risk, undoubtedly, of being

insulted, if the person with the cap-ribbons happened to be in the

upper regions of the house, and to find me out. But oh, what of that?

It is a poor Christian that is afraid of being insulted. I went

upstairs, prepared to bear anything. All was silent and solitary—it was

the servants’ tea-time, I suppose. My aunt’s room was in front. The

miniature of my late dear uncle, Sir John, hung on the wall opposite

the bed. It seemed to smile at me; it seemed to say, “Drusilla! deposit

a book.” There were tables on either side of my aunt’s bed. She was a

bad sleeper, and wanted, or thought she wanted, many things at night. I

put a book near the matches on one side, and a book under the box of

chocolate drops on the other. Whether she wanted a light, or whether

she wanted a drop, there was a precious publication to meet her eye, or

to meet her hand, and to say with silent eloquence, in either case,

“Come, try me! try me!” But one book was now left at the bottom of my

bag, and but one apartment was still unexplored—the bath-room, which

opened out of the bedroom. I peeped in; and the holy inner voice that

never deceives, whispered to me, “You have met her, Drusilla,

everywhere else; meet her at the bath, and the work is done.” I

observed a dressing-gown thrown across a chair. It had a pocket in it,

and in that pocket I put my last book. Can words express my exquisite

sense of duty done, when I had slipped out of the house, unsuspected by

any of them, and when I found myself in the street with my empty bag

under my arm? Oh, my worldly friends, pursuing the phantom, Pleasure,

through the guilty mazes of Dissipation, how easy it is to be happy, if

you will only be good!

When I folded up my things that night—when I reflected on the _true_

riches which I had scattered with such a lavish hand, from top to

bottom of the house of my wealthy aunt—I declare I felt as free from

all anxiety as if I had been a child again. I was so light-hearted that

I sang a verse of the Evening Hymn. I was so light-hearted that I fell

asleep before I could sing another. Quite like a child again! quite

like a child again!

So I passed that blissful night. On rising the next morning, how young

I felt! I might add, how young I looked, if I were capable of dwelling

on the concerns of my own perishable body. But I am not capable—and I

add nothing.

Towards luncheon time—not for the sake of the creature-comforts, but

for the certainty of finding dear aunt—I put on my bonnet to go to

Montagu Square. Just as I was ready, the maid at the lodgings in which

I then lived looked in at the door, and said, “Lady Verinder’s servant,

to see Miss Clack.”

I occupied the parlour-floor, at that period of my residence in London.

The front parlour was my sitting-room. Very small, very low in the

ceiling, very poorly furnished—but, oh, so neat! I looked into the

passage to see which of Lady Verinder’s servants had asked for me. It

was the young footman, Samuel—a civil fresh-coloured person, with a

teachable look and a very obliging manner. I had always felt a

spiritual interest in Samuel, and a wish to try him with a few serious

words. On this occasion, I invited him into my sitting-room.

He came in, with a large parcel under his arm. When he put the parcel

down, it appeared to frighten him. “My lady’s love, Miss; and I was to

say that you would find a letter inside.” Having given that message,

the fresh-coloured young footman surprised me by looking as if he would

have liked to run away.

I detained him to make a few kind inquiries. Could I see my aunt, if I

called in Montagu Square? No; she had gone out for a drive. Miss Rachel

had gone with her, and Mr. Ablewhite had taken a seat in the carriage,

too. Knowing how sadly dear Mr. Godfrey’s charitable work was in

arrear, I thought it odd that he should be going out driving, like an

idle man. I stopped Samuel at the door, and made a few more kind

inquiries. Miss Rachel was going to a ball that night, and Mr.

Ablewhite had arranged to come to coffee, and go with her. There was a

morning concert advertised for tomorrow, and Samuel was ordered to take

places for a large party, including a place for Mr. Ablewhite. “All the

tickets may be gone, Miss,” said this innocent youth, “if I don’t run

and get them at once!” He ran as he said the words—and I found myself

alone again, with some anxious thoughts to occupy me.

We had a special meeting of the Mothers’-Small-Clothes-Conversion

Society that night, summoned expressly with a view to obtaining Mr.

Godfrey’s advice and assistance. Instead of sustaining our sisterhood,

under an overwhelming flow of Trousers which quite prostrated our

little community, he had arranged to take coffee in Montagu Square, and

to go to a ball afterwards! The afternoon of the next day had been

selected for the Festival of the

British-Ladies’-Servants’-Sunday-Sweetheart-Supervision Society.

Instead of being present, the life and soul of that struggling

Institution, he had engaged to make one of a party of worldlings at a

morning concert! I asked myself what did it mean? Alas! it meant that

our Christian Hero was to reveal himself to me in a new character, and

to become associated in my mind with one of the most awful backslidings

of modern times.

To return, however, to the history of the passing day. On finding

myself alone in my room, I naturally turned my attention to the parcel

which appeared to have so strangely intimidated the fresh-coloured

young footman. Had my aunt sent me my promised legacy? and had it taken

the form of cast-off clothes, or worn-out silver spoons, or

unfashionable jewellery, or anything of that sort? Prepared to accept

all, and to resent nothing, I opened the parcel—and what met my view?

The twelve precious publications which I had scattered through the

house, on the previous day; all returned to me by the doctor’s orders!

Well might the youthful Samuel shrink when he brought his parcel into

my room! Well might he run when he had performed his miserable errand!

As to my aunt’s letter, it simply amounted, poor soul, to this—that she

dare not disobey her medical man.

What was to be done now? With my training and my principles, I never

had a moment’s doubt.

Once self-supported by conscience, once embarked on a career of

manifest usefulness, the true Christian never yields. Neither public

nor private influences produce the slightest effect on us, when we have

once got our mission. Taxation may be the consequence of a mission;

riots may be the consequence of a mission; wars may be the consequence

of a mission: we go on with our work, irrespective of every human

consideration which moves the world outside us. We are above reason; we

are beyond ridicule; we see with nobody’s eyes, we hear with nobody’s

ears, we feel with nobody’s hearts, but our own. Glorious, glorious

privilege! And how is it earned? Ah, my friends, you may spare

yourselves the useless inquiry! We are the only people who can earn

it—for we are the only people who are always right.

In the case of my misguided aunt, the form which pious perseverance was

next to take revealed itself to me plainly enough.

Preparation by clerical friends had failed, owing to Lady Verinder’s

own reluctance. Preparation by books had failed, owing to the doctor’s

infidel obstinacy. So be it! What was the next thing to try? The next

thing to try was—Preparation by Little Notes. In other words, the books

themselves having been sent back, select extracts from the books,

copied by different hands, and all addressed as letters to my aunt,

were, some to be sent by post, and some to be distributed about the

house on the plan I had adopted on the previous day. As letters they

would excite no suspicion; as letters they would be opened—and, once

opened, might be read. Some of them I wrote myself. “Dear aunt, may I

ask your attention to a few lines?” &c. “Dear aunt, I was reading last

night, and I chanced on the following passage,” &c. Other letters were

written for me by my valued fellow-workers, the sisterhood at the

Mothers’-Small-Clothes. “Dear madam, pardon the interest taken in you

by a true, though humble, friend.” “Dear madam, may a serious person

surprise you by saying a few cheering words?” Using these and other

similar forms of courteous appeal, we reintroduced all my precious

passages under a form which not even the doctor’s watchful materialism

could suspect. Before the shades of evening had closed around us, I had

a dozen awakening letters for my aunt, instead of a dozen awakening

books. Six I made immediate arrangements for sending through the post,

and six I kept in my pocket for personal distribution in the house the

next day.

Soon after two o’clock I was again on the field of pious conflict,

addressing more kind inquiries to Samuel at Lady Verinder’s door.

My aunt had had a bad night. She was again in the room in which I had

witnessed her Will, resting on the sofa, and trying to get a little

sleep.

I said I would wait in the library, on the chance of seeing her. In the

fervour of my zeal to distribute the letters, it never occurred to me

to inquire about Rachel. The house was quiet, and it was past the hour

at which the musical performance began. I took it for granted that she

and her party of pleasure-seekers (Mr. Godfrey, alas! included) were

all at the concert, and eagerly devoted myself to my good work, while

time and opportunity were still at my own disposal.

My aunt’s correspondence of the morning—including the six awakening

letters which I had posted overnight—was lying unopened on the library

table. She had evidently not felt herself equal to dealing with a large

mass of letters—and she might be daunted by the number of them, if she

entered the library later in the day. I put one of my second set of six

letters on the chimney-piece by itself; leaving it to attract her

curiosity, by means of its solitary position, apart from the rest. A

second letter I put purposely on the floor in the breakfast-room. The

first servant who went in after me would conclude that my aunt had

dropped it, and would be specially careful to restore it to her. The

field thus sown on the basement story, I ran lightly upstairs to

scatter my mercies next over the drawing-room floor.

Just as I entered the front room, I heard a double knock at the

street-door—a soft, fluttering, considerate little knock. Before I

could think of slipping back to the library (in which I was supposed to

be waiting), the active young footman was in the hall, answering the

door. It mattered little, as I thought. In my aunt’s state of health,

visitors in general were not admitted. To my horror and amazement, the

performer of the soft little knock proved to be an exception to general

rules. Samuel’s voice below me (after apparently answering some

questions which I did not hear) said, unmistakably, “Upstairs, if you

please, sir.” The next moment I heard footsteps—a man’s

footsteps—approaching the drawing-room floor. Who could this favoured

male visitor possibly be? Almost as soon as I asked myself the

question, the answer occurred to me. Who _could_ it be but the doctor?

In the case of any other visitor, I should have allowed myself to be

discovered in the drawing-room. There would have been nothing out of

the common in my having got tired of the library, and having gone

upstairs for a change. But my own self-respect stood in the way of my

meeting the person who had insulted me by sending me back my books. I

slipped into the little third room, which I have mentioned as

communicating with the back drawing-room, and dropped the curtains

which closed the open doorway. If I only waited there for a minute or

two, the usual result in such cases would take place. That is to say,

the doctor would be conducted to his patient’s room.

I waited a minute or two, and more than a minute or two. I heard the

visitor walking restlessly backwards and forwards. I also heard him

talking to himself. I even thought I recognised the voice. Had I made a

mistake? Was it not the doctor, but somebody else? Mr. Bruff, for

instance? No! an unerring instinct told me it was not Mr. Bruff.

Whoever he was, he was still talking to himself. I parted the heavy

curtains the least little morsel in the world, and listened.