book in your hand is Doctor Elliotson’s _Human Physiology_; and the

case which the doctor cites rests on the well-known authority of Mr.

Combe.”

The passage pointed out to me was expressed in these terms:—

“Dr. Abel informed me,” says Mr. Combe, “of an Irish porter to a

warehouse, who forgot, when sober, what he had done when drunk; but,

being drunk, again recollected the transactions of his former state of

intoxication. On one occasion, being drunk, he had lost a parcel of

some value, and in his sober moments could give no account of it. Next

time he was intoxicated, he recollected that he had left the parcel at

a certain house, and there being no address on it, it had remained

there safely, and was got on his calling for it.”

“Plain again?” asked Ezra Jennings.

“As plain as need be.”

He put back the slip of paper in its place, and closed the book.

“Are you satisfied that I have not spoken without good authority to

support me?” he asked. “If not, I have only to go to those bookshelves,

and you have only to read the passages which I can point out to you.”

“I am quite satisfied,” I said, “without reading a word more.”

“In that case, we may return to your own personal interest in this

matter. I am bound to tell you that there is something to be said

against the experiment as well as for it. If we could, this year,

exactly reproduce, in your case, the conditions as they existed last

year, it is physiologically certain that we should arrive at exactly

the same result. But this—there is no denying it—is simply impossible.

We can only hope to approximate to the conditions; and if we don’t

succeed in getting you nearly enough back to what you were, this

venture of ours will fail. If we do succeed—and I am myself hopeful of

success—you may at least so far repeat your proceedings on the birthday

night, as to satisfy any reasonable person that you are guiltless,

morally speaking, of the theft of the Diamond. I believe, Mr. Blake, I

have now stated the question, on both sides of it, as fairly as I can,

within the limits that I have imposed on myself. If there is anything

that I have not made clear to you, tell me what it is—and if I can

enlighten you, I will.”

“All that you have explained to me,” I said, “I understand perfectly.

But I own I am puzzled on one point, which you have not made clear to

me yet.”

“What is the point?”

“I don’t understand the effect of the laudanum on me. I don’t

understand my walking downstairs, and along corridors, and my opening

and shutting the drawers of a cabinet, and my going back again to my

own room. All these are active proceedings. I thought the influence of

opium was first to stupefy you, and then to send you to sleep.”

“The common error about opium, Mr. Blake! I am, at this moment,

exerting my intelligence (such as it is) in your service, under the

influence of a dose of laudanum, some ten times larger than the dose

Mr. Candy administered to you. But don’t trust to my authority—even on

a question which comes within my own personal experience. I anticipated

the objection you have just made: and I have again provided myself with

independent testimony which will carry its due weight with it in your

own mind, and in the minds of your friends.”

He handed me the second of the two books which he had by him on the

table.

“There,” he said, “are the far-famed _Confessions of an English Opium

Eater_! Take the book away with you, and read it. At the passage which

I have marked, you will find that when De Quincey had committed what he

calls ‘a debauch of opium,’ he either went to the gallery at the Opera

to enjoy the music, or he wandered about the London markets on Saturday

night, and interested himself in observing all the little shifts and

bargainings of the poor in providing their Sunday’s dinner. So much for

the capacity of a man to occupy himself actively, and to move about

from place to place under the influence of opium.”

“I am answered so far,” I said; “but I am not answered yet as to the

effect produced by the opium on myself.”

“I will try to answer you in a few words,” said Ezra Jennings. “The

action of opium is comprised, in the majority of cases, in two

influences—a stimulating influence first, and a sedative influence

afterwards. Under the stimulating influence, the latest and most vivid

impressions left on your mind—namely, the impressions relating to the

Diamond—would be likely, in your morbidly sensitive nervous condition,

to become intensified in your brain, and would subordinate to

themselves your judgment and your will exactly as an ordinary dream

subordinates to itself your judgment and your will. Little by little,

under this action, any apprehensions about the safety of the Diamond

which you might have felt during the day would be liable to develop

themselves from the state of doubt to the state of certainty—would

impel you into practical action to preserve the jewel—would direct your

steps, with that motive in view, into the room which you entered—and

would guide your hand to the drawers of the cabinet, until you had

found the drawer which held the stone. In the spiritualised

intoxication of opium, you would do all that. Later, as the sedative

action began to gain on the stimulant action, you would slowly become

inert and stupefied. Later still you would fall into a deep sleep. When

the morning came, and the effect of the opium had been all slept off,

you would wake as absolutely ignorant of what you had done in the night

as if you had been living at the Antipodes. Have I made it tolerably

clear to you so far?”

“You have made it so clear,” I said, “that I want you to go farther.

You have shown me how I entered the room, and how I came to take the

Diamond. But Miss Verinder saw me leave the room again, with the jewel

in my hand. Can you trace my proceedings from that moment? Can you

guess what I did next?”

“That is the very point I was coming to,” he rejoined. “It is a

question with me whether the experiment which I propose as a means of

vindicating your innocence, may not also be made a means of recovering

the lost Diamond as well. When you left Miss Verinder’s sitting-room,

with the jewel in your hand, you went back in all probability to your

own room——”

“Yes? and what then?”

“It is possible, Mr. Blake—I dare not say more—that your idea of

preserving the Diamond led, by a natural sequence, to the idea of

hiding the Diamond, and that the place in which you hid it was

somewhere in your bedroom. In that event, the case of the Irish porter

may be your case. You may remember, under the influence of the second

dose of opium, the place in which you hid the Diamond under the

influence of the first.”

It was my turn, now, to enlighten Ezra Jennings. I stopped him, before

he could say any more.

“You are speculating,” I said, “on a result which cannot possibly take

place. The Diamond is, at this moment, in London.”

He started, and looked at me in great surprise.

“In London?” he repeated. “How did it get to London from Lady

Verinder’s house?”

“Nobody knows.”

“You removed it with your own hand from Miss Verinder’s room. How was

it taken out of your keeping?”

“I have no idea how it was taken out of my keeping.”

“Did you see it, when you woke in the morning?”

“No.”

“Has Miss Verinder recovered possession of it?”

“No.”

“Mr. Blake! there seems to be something here which wants clearing up.

May I ask how you know that the Diamond is, at this moment, in London?”

I had put precisely the same question to Mr. Bruff when I made my first

inquiries about the Moonstone, on my return to England. In answering

Ezra Jennings, I accordingly repeated what I had myself heard from the

lawyer’s own lips—and what is already familiar to the readers of these

pages.

He showed plainly that he was not satisfied with my reply.

“With all deference to you,” he said, “and with all deference to your

legal adviser, I maintain the opinion which I expressed just now. It

rests, I am well aware, on a mere assumption. Pardon me for reminding

you, that your opinion also rests on a mere assumption as well.”

The view he took of the matter was entirely new to me. I waited

anxiously to hear how he would defend it.

“_I_ assume,” pursued Ezra Jennings, “that the influence of the

opium—after impelling you to possess yourself of the Diamond, with the

purpose of securing its safety—might also impel you, acting under the

same influence and the same motive, to hide it somewhere in your own

room. _You_ assume that the Hindoo conspirators could by no possibility

commit a mistake. The Indians went to Mr. Luker’s house after the

Diamond—and, therefore, in Mr. Luker’s possession the Diamond must be!

Have you any evidence to prove that the Moonstone was taken to London

at all? You can’t even guess how, or by whom, it was removed from Lady

Verinder’s house! Have you any evidence that the jewel was pledged to

Mr. Luker? He declares that he never heard of the Moonstone; and his

bankers’ receipt acknowledges nothing but the deposit of a valuable of

great price. The Indians assume that Mr. Luker is lying—and you assume

again that the Indians are right. All I say, in differing with you,

is—that my view is possible. What more, Mr. Blake, either logically, or

legally, can be said for yours?”

It was put strongly; but there was no denying that it was put truly as

well.

“I confess you stagger me,” I replied. “Do you object to my writing to

Mr. Bruff, and telling him what you have said?”

“On the contrary, I shall be glad if you will write to Mr. Bruff. If we

consult his experience, we may see the matter under a new light. For

the present, let us return to our experiment with the opium. We have

decided that you leave off the habit of smoking from this moment.”

“From this moment.”

“That is the first step. The next step is to reproduce, as nearly as we

can, the domestic circumstances which surrounded you last year.”

How was this to be done? Lady Verinder was dead. Rachel and I, so long

as the suspicion of theft rested on me, were parted irrevocably.

Godfrey Ablewhite was away travelling on the Continent. It was simply

impossible to reassemble the people who had inhabited the house, when I

had slept in it last. The statement of this objection did not appear to

embarrass Ezra Jennings. He attached very little importance, he said,

to reassembling the same people—seeing that it would be vain to expect

them to reassume the various positions which they had occupied towards

me in the past times. On the other hand, he considered it essential to

the success of the experiment, that I should see the same objects about

me which had surrounded me when I was last in the house.

“Above all things,” he said, “you must sleep in the room which you

slept in, on the birthday night, and it must be furnished in the same

way. The stairs, the corridors, and Miss Verinder’s sitting-room, must

also be restored to what they were when you saw them last. It is

absolutely necessary, Mr. Blake, to replace every article of furniture

in that part of the house which may now be put away. The sacrifice of

your cigars will be useless, unless we can get Miss Verinder’s

permission to do that.”

“Who is to apply to her for permission?” I asked.

“Is it not possible for _you_ to apply?”

“Quite out of the question. After what has passed between us on the

subject of the lost Diamond, I can neither see her, nor write to her,

as things are now.”

Ezra Jennings paused, and considered for a moment.

“May I ask you a delicate question?” he said.

I signed to him to go on.

“Am I right, Mr. Blake, in fancying (from one or two things which have

dropped from you) that you felt no common interest in Miss Verinder, in

former times?”

“Quite right.”

“Was the feeling returned?”

“It was.”

“Do you think Miss Verinder would be likely to feel a strong interest

in the attempt to prove your innocence?”

“I am certain of it.”

“In that case, _I_ will write to Miss Verinder—if you will give me

leave.”

“Telling her of the proposal that you have made to me?”

“Telling her of everything that has passed between us today.”

It is needless to say that I eagerly accepted the service which he had

offered to me.

“I shall have time to write by today’s post,” he said, looking at his

watch. “Don’t forget to lock up your cigars, when you get back to the

hotel! I will call tomorrow morning and hear how you have passed the

night.”

I rose to take leave of him; and attempted to express the grateful

sense of his kindness which I really felt.

He pressed my hand gently. “Remember what I told you on the moor,” he

answered. “If I can do you this little service, Mr. Blake, I shall feel

it like a last gleam of sunshine, falling on the evening of a long and

clouded day.”

We parted. It was then the fifteenth of June. The events of the next

ten days—every one of them more or less directly connected with the

experiment of which I was the passive object—are all placed on record,

exactly as they happened, in the Journal habitually kept by Mr. Candy’s

assistant. In the pages of Ezra Jennings nothing is concealed, and

nothing is forgotten. Let Ezra Jennings tell how the venture with the

opium was tried, and how it ended.

FOURTH NARRATIVE.

_Extracted from the Journal of Ezra Jennings._

1849.—June 15.... With some interruption from patients, and some

interruption from pain, I finished my letter to Miss Verinder in time

for today’s post. I failed to make it as short a letter as I could have

wished. But I think I have made it plain. It leaves her entirely

mistress of her own decision. If she consents to assist the experiment,

she consents of her own free will, and not as a favour to Mr. Franklin

Blake or to me.

June 16th.—Rose late, after a dreadful night; the vengeance of

yesterday’s opium, pursuing me through a series of frightful dreams. At

one time I was whirling through empty space with the phantoms of the

dead, friends and enemies together. At another, the one beloved face

which I shall never see again, rose at my bedside, hideously

phosphorescent in the black darkness, and glared and grinned at me. A

slight return of the old pain, at the usual time in the early morning,

was welcome as a change. It dispelled the visions—and it was bearable

because it did that.

My bad night made it late in the morning, before I could get to Mr.

Franklin Blake. I found him stretched on the sofa, breakfasting on

brandy and soda water, and a dry biscuit.

“I am beginning, as well as you could possibly wish,” he said. “A

miserable, restless night; and a total failure of appetite this

morning. Exactly what happened last year, when I gave up my cigars. The

sooner I am ready for my second dose of laudanum, the better I shall be

pleased.”

“You shall have it on the earliest possible day,” I answered. “In the

meantime, we must be as careful of your health as we can. If we allow

you to become exhausted, we shall fail in that way. You must get an

appetite for your dinner. In other words, you must get a ride or a walk

this morning, in the fresh air.”

“I will ride, if they can find me a horse here. By-the-bye, I wrote to

Mr. Bruff, yesterday. Have you written to Miss Verinder?”

“Yes—by last night’s post.”

“Very good. We shall have some news worth hearing, to tell each other

tomorrow. Don’t go yet! I have a word to say to you. You appeared to

think, yesterday, that our experiment with the opium was not likely to

be viewed very favourably by some of my friends. You were quite right.

I call old Gabriel Betteredge one of my friends; and you will be amused

to hear that he protested strongly when I saw him yesterday. ‘You have

done a wonderful number of foolish things in the course of your life,

Mr. Franklin, but this tops them all!’ There is Betteredge’s opinion!

You will make allowance for his prejudices, I am sure, if you and he

happen to meet?”

I left Mr. Blake, to go my rounds among my patients; feeling the better

and the happier even for the short interview that I had had with him.

What is the secret of the attraction that there is for me in this man?

Does it only mean that I feel the contrast between the frankly kind

manner in which he has allowed me to become acquainted with him, and

the merciless dislike and distrust with which I am met by other people?

Or is there really something in him which answers to the yearning that

I have for a little human sympathy—the yearning, which has survived the

solitude and persecution of many years; which seems to grow keener and

keener, as the time comes nearer and nearer when I shall endure and

feel no more? How useless to ask these questions! Mr. Blake has given

me a new interest in life. Let that be enough, without seeking to know

what the new interest is.

June 17th.—Before breakfast, this morning, Mr. Candy informed me that

he was going away for a fortnight, on a visit to a friend in the south

of England. He gave me as many special directions, poor fellow, about

the patients, as if he still had the large practice which he possessed

before he was taken ill. The practice is worth little enough now! Other

doctors have superseded _him;_ and nobody who can help it will employ

_me_.

It is perhaps fortunate that he is to be away just at this time. He

would have been mortified if I had not informed him of the experiment

which I am going to try with Mr. Blake. And I hardly know what

undesirable results might not have happened, if I had taken him into my

confidence. Better as it is. Unquestionably, better as it is.

The post brought me Miss Verinder’s answer, after Mr. Candy had left

the house.

A charming letter! It gives me the highest opinion of her. There is no

attempt to conceal the interest that she feels in our proceedings. She

tells me, in the prettiest manner, that my letter has satisfied her of

Mr. Blake’s innocence, without the slightest need (so far as she is

concerned) of putting my assertion to the proof. She even upbraids

herself—most undeservedly, poor thing!—for not having divined at the

time what the true solution of the mystery might really be. The motive

underlying all this proceeds evidently from something more than a

generous eagerness to make atonement for a wrong which she has

innocently inflicted on another person. It is plain that she has loved

him, throughout the estrangement between them. In more than one place

the rapture of discovering that he has deserved to be loved, breaks its

way innocently through the stoutest formalities of pen and ink, and

even defies the stronger restraint still of writing to a stranger. Is

it possible (I ask myself, in reading this delightful letter) that I,

of all men in the world, am chosen to be the means of bringing these

two young people together again? My own happiness has been trampled

under foot; my own love has been torn from me. Shall I live to see a

happiness of others, which is of my making—a love renewed, which is of

my bringing back? Oh merciful Death, let me see it before your arms

enfold me, before your voice whispers to me, “Rest at last!”

There are two requests contained in the letter. One of them prevents me

from showing it to Mr. Franklin Blake. I am authorised to tell him that

Miss Verinder willingly consents to place her house at our disposal;

and, that said, I am desired to add no more.

So far, it is easy to comply with her wishes. But the second request

embarrasses me seriously.

Not content with having written to Mr. Betteredge, instructing him to

carry out whatever directions I may have to give, Miss Verinder asks

leave to assist me, by personally superintending the restoration of her

own sitting-room. She only waits a word of reply from me to make the

journey to Yorkshire, and to be present as one of the witnesses on the

night when the opium is tried for the second time.

Here, again, there is a motive under the surface; and, here again, I

fancy that I can find it out.

What she has forbidden me to tell Mr. Franklin Blake, she is (as I

interpret it) eager to tell him with her own lips, _before_ he is put

to the test which is to vindicate his character in the eyes of other

people. I understand and admire this generous anxiety to acquit him,

without waiting until his innocence may, or may not, be proved. It is

the atonement that she is longing to make, poor girl, after having

innocently and inevitably wronged him. But the thing cannot be done. I

have no sort of doubt that the agitation which a meeting between them

would produce on both sides—reviving dormant feelings, appealing to old

memories, awakening new hopes—would, in their effect on the mind of Mr.

Blake, be almost certainly fatal to the success of our experiment. It

is hard enough, as things are, to reproduce in him the conditions as

they existed, or nearly as they existed, last year. With new interests

and new emotions to agitate him, the attempt would be simply useless.

And yet, knowing this, I cannot find it in my heart to disappoint her.

I must try if I can discover some new arrangement, before post-time,

which will allow me to say Yes to Miss Verinder, without damage to the

service which I have bound myself to render to Mr. Franklin Blake.

Two o’clock.—I have just returned from my round of medical visits;

having begun, of course, by calling at the hotel.

Mr. Blake’s report of the night is the same as before. He has had some

intervals of broken sleep, and no more. But he feels it less today,

having slept after yesterday’s dinner. This after-dinner sleep is the

result, no doubt, of the ride which I advised him to take. I fear I

shall have to curtail his restorative exercise in the fresh air. He

must not be too well; he must not be too ill. It is a case (as a sailor

would say) of very fine steering.

He has not heard yet from Mr. Bruff. I found him eager to know if I had

received any answer from Miss Verinder.

I told him exactly what I was permitted to tell, and no more. It was

quite needless to invent excuses for not showing him the letter. He

told me bitterly enough, poor fellow, that he understood the delicacy

which disinclined me to produce it. “She consents, of course, as a

matter of common courtesy and common justice,” he said. “But she keeps

her own opinion of me, and waits to see the result.” I was sorely

tempted to hint that he was now wronging her as she had wronged him. On

reflection, I shrank from forestalling her in the double luxury of

surprising and forgiving him.

My visit was a very short one. After the experience of the other night,

I have been compelled once more to give up my dose of opium. As a

necessary result, the agony of the disease that is in me has got the

upper hand again. I felt the attack coming on, and left abruptly, so as

not to alarm or distress him. It only lasted a quarter of an hour this

time, and it left me strength enough to go on with my work.

Five o’clock.—I have written my reply to Miss Verinder.

The arrangement I have proposed reconciles the interests on both sides,

if she will only consent to it. After first stating the objections that

there are to a meeting between Mr. Blake and herself, before the

experiment is tried, I have suggested that she should so time her

journey as to arrive at the house privately, on the evening when we

make the attempt. Travelling by the afternoon train from London, she

would delay her arrival until nine o’clock. At that hour, I have

undertaken to see Mr. Blake safely into his bedchamber; and so to leave

Miss Verinder free to occupy her own rooms until the time comes for

administering the laudanum. When that has been done, there can be no

objection to her watching the result, with the rest of us. On the next

morning, she shall show Mr. Blake (if she likes) her correspondence

with me, and shall satisfy him in that way that he was acquitted in her

estimation, before the question of his innocence was put to the proof.

In that sense, I have written to her. This is all that I can do today.

Tomorrow I must see Mr. Betteredge, and give the necessary directions

for re-opening the house.

June 18th.—Late again, in calling on Mr. Franklin Blake. More of that

horrible pain in the early morning; followed, this time, by complete

prostration, for some hours. I foresee, in spite of the penalties which

it exacts from me, that I shall have to return to the opium for the

hundredth time. If I had only myself to think of, I should prefer the

sharp pains to the frightful dreams. But the physical suffering

exhausts me. If I let myself sink, it may end in my becoming useless to

Mr. Blake at the time when he wants me most.

It was nearly one o’clock before I could get to the hotel today. The

visit, even in my shattered condition, proved to be a most amusing

one—thanks entirely to the presence on the scene of Gabriel Betteredge.

I found him in the room, when I went in. He withdrew to the window and

looked out, while I put my first customary question to my patient. Mr.

Blake had slept badly again, and he felt the loss of rest this morning

more than he had felt it yet.

I asked next if he had heard from Mr. Bruff.

A letter had reached him that morning. Mr. Bruff expressed the

strongest disapproval of the course which his friend and client was

taking under my advice. It was mischievous—for it excited hopes that

might never be realised. It was quite unintelligible to _his_ mind,

except that it looked like a piece of trickery, akin to the trickery of

mesmerism, clairvoyance, and the like. It unsettled Miss Verinder’s

house, and it would end in unsettling Miss Verinder herself. He had put

the case (without mentioning names) to an eminent physician; and the

eminent physician had smiled, had shaken his head, and had

said—nothing. On these grounds, Mr. Bruff entered his protest, and left

it there.

My next inquiry related to the subject of the Diamond. Had the lawyer

produced any evidence to prove that the jewel was in London?

No, the lawyer had simply declined to discuss the question. He was

himself satisfied that the Moonstone had been pledged to Mr. Luker. His

eminent absent friend, Mr. Murthwaite (whose consummate knowledge of

the Indian character no one could deny), was satisfied also. Under

these circumstances, and with the many demands already made on him, he

must decline entering into any disputes on the subject of evidence.

Time would show; and Mr. Bruff was willing to wait for time.

It was quite plain—even if Mr. Blake had not made it plainer still by

reporting the substance of the letter, instead of reading what was

actually written—that distrust of _me_ was at the bottom of all this.

Having myself foreseen that result, I was neither mortified nor

surprised. I asked Mr. Blake if his friend’s protest had shaken him. He

answered emphatically, that it had not produced the slightest effect on

his mind. I was free after that to dismiss Mr. Bruff from

consideration—and I did dismiss him accordingly.

A pause in the talk between us, followed—and Gabriel Betteredge came

out from his retirement at the window.

“Can you favour me with your attention, sir?” he inquired, addressing

himself to me.

“I am quite at your service,” I answered.

Betteredge took a chair and seated himself at the table. He produced a

huge old-fashioned leather pocket-book, with a pencil of dimensions to

match. Having put on his spectacles, he opened the pocket-book, at a

blank page, and addressed himself to me once more.

“I have lived,” said Betteredge, looking at me sternly, “nigh on fifty

years in the service of my late lady. I was page-boy before that, in

the service of the old lord, her father. I am now somewhere between

seventy and eighty years of age—never mind exactly where! I am reckoned

to have got as pretty a knowledge and experience of the world as most

men. And what does it all end in? It ends, Mr. Ezra Jennings, in a

conjuring trick being performed on Mr. Franklin Blake, by a doctor’s

assistant with a bottle of laudanum—and by the living jingo, I’m

appointed, in my old age, to be conjurer’s boy!”

Mr. Blake burst out laughing. I attempted to speak. Betteredge held up

his hand, in token that he had not done yet.

“Not a word, Mr. Jennings!” he said, “It don’t want a word, sir, from

you. I have got my principles, thank God. If an order comes to me,

which is own brother to an order come from Bedlam, it don’t matter. So

long as I get it from my master or mistress, as the case may be, I obey

it. I may have my own opinion, which is also, you will please to

remember, the opinion of Mr. Bruff—the Great Mr. Bruff!” said

Betteredge, raising his voice, and shaking his head at me solemnly. “It

don’t matter; I withdraw my opinion, for all that. My young lady says,

‘Do it.’ And I say, ‘Miss, it shall be done.’ Here I am, with my book

and my pencil—the latter not pointed so well as I could wish, but when

Christians take leave of their senses, who is to expect that pencils

will keep their points? Give me your orders, Mr. Jennings. I’ll have

them in writing, sir. I’m determined not to be behind ’em, or before

’em, by so much as a hair’s breadth. I’m a blind agent—that’s what I

am. A blind agent!” repeated Betteredge, with infinite relish of his

own description of himself.

“I am very sorry,” I began, “that you and I don’t agree——”

“Don’t bring _me_, into it!” interposed Betteredge. “This is not a

matter of agreement, it’s a matter of obedience. Issue your directions,

sir—issue your directions!”

Mr. Blake made me a sign to take him at his word. I “issued my

directions” as plainly and as gravely as I could.

“I wish certain parts of the house to be re-opened,” I said, “and to be

furnished, exactly as they were furnished at this time last year.”

Betteredge gave his imperfectly-pointed pencil a preliminary lick with

his tongue. “Name the parts, Mr. Jennings!” he said loftily.

“First, the inner hall, leading to the chief staircase.”

“‘First, the inner hall,’” Betteredge wrote. “Impossible to furnish

that, sir, as it was furnished last year—to begin with.”

“Why?”

“Because there was a stuffed buzzard, Mr. Jennings, in the hall last

year. When the family left, the buzzard was put away with the other

things. When the buzzard was put away—he burst.”

“We will except the buzzard then.”

Betteredge took a note of the exception. “‘The inner hall to be

furnished again, as furnished last year. A burst buzzard alone

excepted.’ Please to go on, Mr. Jennings.”

“The carpet to be laid down on the stairs, as before.”

“‘The carpet to be laid down on the stairs, as before.’ Sorry to

disappoint you, sir. But that can’t be done either.”

“Why not?”

“Because the man who laid that carpet down is dead, Mr. Jennings—and

the like of him for reconciling together a carpet and a corner, is not

to be found in all England, look where you may.”

“Very well. We must try the next best man in England.”

Betteredge took another note; and I went on issuing my directions.

“Miss Verinder’s sitting-room to be restored exactly to what it was

last year. Also, the corridor leading from the sitting-room to the

first landing. Also, the second corridor, leading from the second

landing to the best bedrooms. Also, the bedroom occupied last June by

Mr. Franklin Blake.”

Betteredge’s blunt pencil followed me conscientiously, word by word.

“Go on, sir,” he said, with sardonic gravity. “There’s a deal of

writing left in the point of this pencil yet.”

I told him that I had no more directions to give. “Sir,” said

Betteredge, “in that case, I have a point or two to put on my own

behalf.” He opened the pocket-book at a new page, and gave the

inexhaustible pencil another preliminary lick.

“I wish to know,” he began, “whether I may, or may not, wash my

hands——”

“You may decidedly,” said Mr. Blake. “I’ll ring for the waiter.”

“——of certain responsibilities,” pursued Betteredge, impenetrably

declining to see anybody in the room but himself and me. “As to Miss

Verinder’s sitting-room, to begin with. When we took up the carpet last

year, Mr. Jennings, we found a surprising quantity of pins. Am I

responsible for putting back the pins?”

“Certainly not.”

Betteredge made a note of that concession, on the spot.

“As to the first corridor next,” he resumed. “When we moved the

ornaments in that part, we moved a statue of a fat naked

child—profanely described in the catalogue of the house as ‘Cupid, god

of Love.’ He had two wings last year, in the fleshy part of his

shoulders. My eye being off him, for the moment, he lost one of them.

Am I responsible for Cupid’s wing?”

I made another concession, and Betteredge made another note.

“As to the second corridor,” he went on. “There having been nothing in

it, last year, but the doors of the rooms (to every one of which I can

swear, if necessary), my mind is easy, I admit, respecting that part of

the house only. But, as to Mr. Franklin’s bedroom (if _that_ is to be

put back to what it was before), I want to know who is responsible for

keeping it in a perpetual state of litter, no matter how often it may

be set right—his trousers here, his towels there, and his French novels

everywhere. I say, who is responsible for untidying the tidiness of Mr.

Franklin’s room, him or me?”

Mr. Blake declared that he would assume the whole responsibility with

the greatest pleasure. Betteredge obstinately declined to listen to any

solution of the difficulty, without first referring it to my sanction

and approval. I accepted Mr. Blake’s proposal; and Betteredge made a

last entry in the pocket-book to that effect.

“Look in when you like, Mr. Jennings, beginning from tomorrow,” he

said, getting on his legs. “You will find me at work, with the

necessary persons to assist me. I respectfully beg to thank you, sir,

for overlooking the case of the stuffed buzzard, and the other case of

the Cupid’s wing—as also for permitting me to wash my hands of all

responsibility in respect of the pins on the carpet, and the litter in

Mr. Franklin’s room. Speaking as a servant, I am deeply indebted to

you. Speaking as a man, I consider you to be a person whose head is

full of maggots, and I take up my testimony against your experiment as

a delusion and a snare. Don’t be afraid, on that account, of my

feelings as a man getting in the way of my duty as a servant! You shall

be obeyed. The maggots notwithstanding, sir, you shall be obeyed. If it

ends in your setting the house on fire, Damme if I send for the

engines, unless you ring the bell and order them first!”

With that farewell assurance, he made me a bow, and walked out of the

room.

“Do you think we can depend on him?” I asked.

“Implicitly,” answered Mr. Blake. “When we go to the house, we shall

find nothing neglected, and nothing forgotten.”

June 19th.—Another protest against our contemplated proceedings! From a

lady this time.

The morning’s post brought me two letters. One from Miss Verinder,

consenting, in the kindest manner, to the arrangement that I have

proposed. The other from the lady under whose care she is living—one

Mrs. Merridew.

Mrs. Merridew presents her compliments, and does not pretend to

understand the subject on which I have been corresponding with Miss

Verinder, in its scientific bearings. Viewed in its social bearings,

however, she feels free to pronounce an opinion. I am probably, Mrs.

Merridew thinks, not aware that Miss Verinder is barely nineteen years

of age. To allow a young lady, at her time of life, to be present

(without a “chaperone”) in a house full of men among whom a medical

experiment is being carried on, is an outrage on propriety which Mrs.

Merridew cannot possibly permit. If the matter is allowed to proceed,

she will feel it to be her duty—at a serious sacrifice of her own

personal convenience—to accompany Miss Verinder to Yorkshire. Under

these circumstances, she ventures to request that I will kindly

reconsider the subject; seeing that Miss Verinder declines to be guided

by any opinion but mine. Her presence cannot possibly be necessary; and

a word from me, to that effect, would relieve both Mrs. Merridew and

myself of a very unpleasant responsibility.

Translated from polite commonplace into plain English, the meaning of

this is, as I take it, that Mrs. Merridew stands in mortal fear of the

opinion of the world. She has unfortunately appealed to the very last

man in existence who has any reason to regard that opinion with

respect. I won’t disappoint Miss Verinder; and I won’t delay a

reconciliation between two young people who love each other, and who

have been parted too long already. Translated from plain English into

polite commonplace, this means that Mr. Jennings presents his

compliments to Mrs. Merridew, and regrets that he cannot feel justified

in interfering any farther in the matter.

Mr. Blake’s report of himself, this morning, was the same as before. We

determined not to disturb Betteredge by overlooking him at the house

today. Tomorrow will be time enough for our first visit of inspection.

June 20th.—Mr. Blake is beginning to feel his continued restlessness at

night. The sooner the rooms are refurnished, now, the better.

On our way to the house, this morning, he consulted me, with some

nervous impatience and irresolution, about a letter (forwarded to him

from London) which he had received from Sergeant Cuff.

The Sergeant writes from Ireland. He acknowledges the receipt (through

his housekeeper) of a card and message which Mr. Blake left at his

residence near Dorking, and announces his return to England as likely

to take place in a week or less. In the meantime, he requests to be

favoured with Mr. Blake’s reasons for wishing to speak to him (as

stated in the message) on the subject of the Moonstone. If Mr. Blake

can convict him of having made any serious mistake, in the course of

his last year’s inquiry concerning the Diamond, he will consider it a

duty (after the liberal manner in which he was treated by the late Lady

Verinder) to place himself at that gentleman’s disposal. If not, he

begs permission to remain in his retirement, surrounded by the peaceful

horticultural attractions of a country life.

After reading the letter, I had no hesitation in advising Mr. Blake to

inform Sergeant Cuff, in reply, of all that had happened since the

inquiry was suspended last year, and to leave him to draw his own

conclusions from the plain facts.

On second thoughts I also suggested inviting the Sergeant to be present

at the experiment, in the event of his returning to England in time to

join us. He would be a valuable witness to have, in any case; and, if I

proved to be wrong in believing the Diamond to be hidden in Mr. Blake’s

room, his advice might be of great importance, at a future stage of the

proceedings over which I could exercise no control. This last

consideration appeared to decide Mr. Blake. He promised to follow my

advice.

The sound of the hammer informed us that the work of refurnishing was

in full progress, as we entered the drive that led to the house.

Betteredge, attired for the occasion in a fisherman’s red cap, and an

apron of green baize, met us in the outer hall. The moment he saw me,

he pulled out the pocket-book and pencil, and obstinately insisted on

taking notes of everything that I said to him. Look where we might, we

found, as Mr. Blake had foretold, that the work was advancing as rapidly

and as intelligently as it was possible to desire. But there was still

much to be done in the inner hall, and in Miss Verinder’s room. It

seemed doubtful whether the house would be ready for us before the end

of the week.

Having congratulated Betteredge on the progress that he had made (he

persisted in taking notes every time I opened my lips; declining, at

the same time, to pay the slightest attention to anything said by Mr.

Blake); and having promised to return for a second visit of inspection

in a day or two, we prepared to leave the house, going out by the back

way. Before we were clear of the passages downstairs, I was stopped by

Betteredge, just as I was passing the door which led into his own room.

“Could I say two words to you in private?” he asked, in a mysterious

whisper.

I consented of course. Mr. Blake walked on to wait for me in the

garden, while I accompanied Betteredge into his room. I fully

anticipated a demand for certain new concessions, following the

precedent already established in the cases of the stuffed buzzard, and

the Cupid’s wing. To my great surprise, Betteredge laid his hand

confidentially on my arm, and put this extraordinary question to me:

“Mr. Jennings, do you happen to be acquainted with _Robinson Crusoe_?”

I answered that I had read _Robinson Crusoe_ when I was a child.

“Not since then?” inquired Betteredge.

“Not since then.”

He fell back a few steps, and looked at me with an expression of

compassionate curiosity, tempered by superstitious awe.

“He has not read _Robinson Crusoe_ since he was a child,” said

Betteredge, speaking to himself—not to me. “Let’s try how _Robinson

Crusoe_ strikes him now!”

He unlocked a cupboard in a corner, and produced a dirty and

dog’s-eared book, which exhaled a strong odour of stale tobacco as he

turned over the leaves. Having found a passage of which he was

apparently in search, he requested me to join him in the corner; still

mysteriously confidential, and still speaking under his breath.

“In respect to this hocus-pocus of yours, sir, with the laudanum and

Mr. Franklin Blake,” he began. “While the workpeople are in the house,

my duty as a servant gets the better of my feelings as a man. When the

workpeople are gone, my feelings as a man get the better of my duty as

a servant. Very good. Last night, Mr. Jennings, it was borne in

powerfully on my mind that this new medical enterprise of yours would

end badly. If I had yielded to that secret Dictate, I should have put

all the furniture away again with my own hand, and have warned the

workmen off the premises when they came the next morning.”

“I am glad to find, from what I have seen upstairs,” I said, “that you

resisted the secret Dictate.”

“Resisted isn’t the word,” answered Betteredge. “Wrostled is the word.

I wrostled, sir, between the silent orders in my bosom pulling me one

way, and the written orders in my pocket-book pushing me the other,

until (saving your presence) I was in a cold sweat. In that dreadful

perturbation of mind and laxity of body, to what remedy did I apply? To

the remedy, sir, which has never failed me yet for the last thirty

years and more—to This Book!”

He hit the book a sounding blow with his open hand, and struck out of

it a stronger smell of stale tobacco than ever.

“What did I find here,” pursued Betteredge, “at the first page I

opened? This awful bit, sir, page one hundred and seventy-eight, as

follows:—‘Upon these, and many like Reflections, I afterwards made it a

certain rule with me, That whenever I found those secret Hints or

Pressings of my Mind, to doing, or not doing any Thing that presented;

or to going this Way, or that Way, I never failed to obey the secret

Dictate.’ As I live by bread, Mr. Jennings, those were the first words

that met my eye, exactly at the time when I myself was setting the

secret Dictate at defiance! You don’t see anything at all out of the

common in that, do you, sir?”

“I see a coincidence—nothing more.”

“You don’t feel at all shaken, Mr. Jennings, in respect to this medical

enterprise of yours?

“Not the least in the world.”

Betteredge stared hard at me, in dead silence. He closed the book with

great deliberation; he locked it up again in the cupboard with

extraordinary care; he wheeled round, and stared hard at me once more.

Then he spoke.

“Sir,” he said gravely, “there are great allowances to be made for a

man who has not read _Robinson Crusoe_ since he was a child. I wish you

good morning.”

He opened his door with a low bow, and left me at liberty to find my

own way into the garden. I met Mr. Blake returning to the house.

“You needn’t tell me what has happened,” he said. “Betteredge has

played his last card: he has made another prophetic discovery in

_Robinson Crusoe_. Have you humoured his favourite delusion? No? You

have let him see that you don’t believe in _Robinson Crusoe_? Mr.

Jennings! you have fallen to the lowest possible place in Betteredge’s

estimation. Say what you like, and do what you like, for the future.

You will find that he won’t waste another word on you now.”

June 21st.—A short entry must suffice in my journal today.

Mr. Blake has had the worst night that he has passed yet. I have been

obliged, greatly against my will, to prescribe for him. Men of his

sensitive organisation are fortunately quick in feeling the effect of

remedial measures. Otherwise, I should be inclined to fear that he will

be totally unfit for the experiment when the time comes to try it.

As for myself, after some little remission of my pains for the last two

days I had an attack this morning, of which I shall say nothing but

that it has decided me to return to the opium. I shall close this book,

and take my full dose—five hundred drops.

June 22nd.—Our prospects look better today. Mr. Blake’s nervous

suffering is greatly allayed. He slept a little last night. _My_ night,

thanks to the opium, was the night of a man who is stunned. I can’t say

that I woke this morning; the fitter expression would be, that I

recovered my senses.

We drove to the house to see if the refurnishing was done. It will be

completed tomorrow—Saturday. As Mr. Blake foretold, Betteredge raised

no further obstacles. From first to last, he was ominously polite, and

ominously silent.

My medical enterprise (as Betteredge calls it) must now, inevitably, be

delayed until Monday next. Tomorrow evening the workmen will be late in

the house. On the next day, the established Sunday tyranny which is one

of the institutions of this free country, so times the trains as to

make it impossible to ask anybody to travel to us from London. Until

Monday comes, there is nothing to be done but to watch Mr. Blake

carefully, and to keep him, if possible, in the same state in which I

find him today.

In the meanwhile, I have prevailed on him to write to Mr. Bruff, making

a point of it that he shall be present as one of the witnesses. I

especially choose the lawyer, because he is strongly prejudiced against

us. If we convince _him_, we place our victory beyond the possibility

of dispute.

Mr. Blake has also written to Sergeant Cuff; and I have sent a line to

Miss Verinder. With these, and with old Betteredge (who is really a

person of importance in the family) we shall have witnesses enough for

the purpose—without including Mrs. Merridew, if Mrs. Merridew persists

in sacrificing herself to the opinion of the world.

June 23rd.—The vengeance of the opium overtook me again last night. No

matter; I must go on with it now till Monday is past and gone.

Mr. Blake is not so well again today. At two this morning, he confesses

that he opened the drawer in which his cigars are put away. He only

succeeded in locking it up again by a violent effort. His next

proceeding, in case of temptation, was to throw the key out of window.

The waiter brought it in this morning, discovered at the bottom of an

empty cistern—such is Fate! I have taken possession of the key until

Tuesday next.

June 24th.—Mr. Blake and I took a long drive in an open carriage. We

both felt beneficially the blessed influence of the soft summer air. I

dined with him at the hotel. To my great relief—for I found him in an

over-wrought, over-excited state this morning—he had two hours’ sound

sleep on the sofa after dinner. If he has another bad night, now—I am

not afraid of the consequences.

June 25th, Monday.—The day of the experiment! It is five o’clock in the

afternoon. We have just arrived at the house.

The first and foremost question, is the question of Mr. Blake’s health.

So far as it is possible for me to judge, he promises (physically

speaking) to be quite as susceptible to the action of the opium tonight

as he was at this time last year. He is, this afternoon, in a state of

nervous sensitiveness which just stops short of nervous irritation. He

changes colour readily; his hand is not quite steady; and he starts at

chance noises, and at unexpected appearances of persons and things.

These results have all been produced by deprivation of sleep, which is

in its turn the nervous consequence of a sudden cessation in the habit

of smoking, after that habit has been carried to an extreme. Here are

the same causes at work again, which operated last year; and here are,

apparently, the same effects. Will the parallel still hold good, when

the final test has been tried? The events of the night must decide.

While I write these lines, Mr. Blake is amusing himself at the billiard

table in the inner hall, practising different strokes in the game, as

he was accustomed to practise them when he was a guest in this house in

June last. I have brought my journal here, partly with a view to

occupying the idle hours which I am sure to have on my hands between

this and tomorrow morning; partly in the hope that something may happen

which it may be worth my while to place on record at the time.

Have I omitted anything, thus far? A glance at yesterday’s entry shows

me that I have forgotten to note the arrival of the morning’s post. Let

me set this right before I close these leaves for the present, and join

Mr. Blake.

I received a few lines then, yesterday, from Miss Verinder. She has

arranged to travel by the afternoon train, as I recommended. Mrs.

Merridew has insisted on accompanying her. The note hints that the old

lady’s generally excellent temper is a little ruffled, and requests all

due indulgence for her, in consideration of her age and her habits. I

will endeavour, in my relations with Mrs. Merridew, to emulate the

moderation which Betteredge displays in his relations with me. He

received us today, portentously arrayed in his best black suit, and his

stiffest white cravat. Whenever he looks my way, he remembers that I

have not read _Robinson Crusoe_ since I was a child, and he

respectfully pities me.

Yesterday, also, Mr. Blake had the lawyer’s answer. Mr. Bruff accepts

the invitation—under protest. It is, he thinks, clearly necessary that

a gentleman possessed of the average allowance of common sense, should

accompany Miss Verinder to the scene of, what we will venture to call,

the proposed exhibition. For want of a better escort, Mr. Bruff himself

will be that gentleman.—So here is poor Miss Verinder provided with two

“chaperones.” It is a relief to think that the opinion of the world

must surely be satisfied with this!

Nothing has been heard of Sergeant Cuff. He is no doubt still in

Ireland. We must not expect to see him tonight.

Betteredge has just come in, to say that Mr. Blake has asked for me. I

must lay down my pen for the present.

Seven o’clock.—We have been all over the refurnished rooms and

staircases again; and we have had a pleasant stroll in the shrubbery,

which was Mr. Blake’s favourite walk when he was here last. In this

way, I hope to revive the old impressions of places and things as

vividly as possible in his mind.

We are now going to dine, exactly at the hour at which the birthday

dinner was given last year. My object, of course, is a purely medical

one in this case. The laudanum must find the process of digestion, as

nearly as may be, where the laudanum found it last year.

At a reasonable time after dinner I propose to lead the conversation

back again—as inartificially as I can—to the subject of the Diamond,

and of the Indian conspiracy to steal it. When I have filled his mind

with these topics, I shall have done all that it is in my power to do,

before the time comes for giving him the second dose.

Half-past eight.—I have only this moment found an opportunity of

attending to the most important duty of all; the duty of looking in the

family medicine chest, for the laudanum which Mr. Candy used last year.

Ten minutes since, I caught Betteredge at an unoccupied moment, and

told him what I wanted. Without a word of objection, without so much as

an attempt to produce his pocket-book, he led the way (making

allowances for me at every step) to the store-room in which the

medicine chest is kept.

I discovered the bottle, carefully guarded by a glass stopper tied over

with leather. The preparation which it contained was, as I had

anticipated, the common Tincture of Opium. Finding the bottle still

well filled, I have resolved to use it, in preference to employing

either of the two preparations with which I had taken care to provide

myself, in case of emergency.

The question of the quantity which I am to administer presents certain

difficulties. I have thought it over, and have decided on increasing

the dose.

My notes inform me that Mr. Candy only administered twenty-five minims.

This is a small dose to have produced the results which followed—even

in the case of a person so sensitive as Mr. Blake. I think it highly

probable that Mr. Candy gave more than he supposed himself to have

given—knowing, as I do, that he has a keen relish of the pleasures of

the table, and that he measured out the laudanum on the birthday, after

dinner. In any case, I shall run the risk of enlarging the dose to

forty minims. On this occasion, Mr. Blake knows beforehand that he is

going to take the laudanum—which is equivalent, physiologically

speaking, to his having (unconsciously to himself) a certain capacity

in him to resist the effects. If my view is right, a larger quantity is

therefore imperatively required, this time, to repeat the results which

the smaller quantity produced, last year.

Ten o’clock.—The witnesses, or the company (which shall I call them?)

reached the house an hour since.

A little before nine o’clock, I prevailed on Mr. Blake to accompany me

to his bedroom; stating, as a reason, that I wished him to look round

it, for the last time, in order to make quite sure that nothing had

been forgotten in the refurnishing of the room. I had previously

arranged with Betteredge, that the bedchamber prepared for Mr. Bruff

should be the next room to Mr. Blake’s, and that I should be informed

of the lawyer’s arrival by a knock at the door. Five minutes after the

clock in the hall had struck nine, I heard the knock; and, going out

immediately, met Mr. Bruff in the corridor.

My personal appearance (as usual) told against me. Mr. Bruff’s distrust

looked at me plainly enough out of Mr. Bruff’s eyes. Being well used to

producing this effect on strangers, I did not hesitate a moment in

saying what I wanted to say, before the lawyer found his way into Mr.

Blake’s room.

“You have travelled here, I believe, in company with Mrs. Merridew and

Miss Verinder?” I said.

“Yes,” answered Mr. Bruff, as drily as might be.

“Miss Verinder has probably told you, that I wish her presence in the

house (and Mrs. Merridew’s presence of course) to be kept a secret from

Mr. Blake, until my experiment on him has been tried first?”

“I know that I am to hold my tongue, sir!” said Mr. Bruff, impatiently.

“Being habitually silent on the subject of human folly, I am all the

readier to keep my lips closed on this occasion. Does that satisfy

you?”

I bowed, and left Betteredge to show him to his room. Betteredge gave

me one look at parting, which said, as if in so many words, “You have

caught a Tartar, Mr. Jennings—and the name of him is Bruff.”

It was next necessary to get the meeting over with the two ladies. I

descended the stairs—a little nervously, I confess—on my way to Miss

Verinder’s sitting-room.

The gardener’s wife (charged with looking after the accommodation of

the ladies) met me in the first-floor corridor. This excellent woman

treats me with an excessive civility which is plainly the offspring of

down-right terror. She stares, trembles, and curtseys, whenever I speak

to her. On my asking for Miss Verinder, she stared, trembled, and would

no doubt have curtseyed next, if Miss Verinder herself had not cut that

ceremony short, by suddenly opening her sitting-room door.

“Is that Mr. Jennings?” she asked.

Before I could answer, she came out eagerly to speak to me in the

corridor. We met under the light of a lamp on a bracket. At the first

sight of me, Miss Verinder stopped, and hesitated. She recovered

herself instantly, coloured for a moment—and then, with a charming

frankness, offered me her hand.

“I can’t treat you like a stranger, Mr. Jennings,” she said. “Oh, if

you only knew how happy your letters have made me!”

She looked at my ugly wrinkled face, with a bright gratitude so new to

me in _my_ experience of my fellow-creatures, that I was at a loss how

to answer her. Nothing had prepared me for her kindness and her beauty.

The misery of many years has not hardened my heart, thank God. I was as

awkward and as shy with her, as if I had been a lad in my teens.

“Where is he now?” she asked, giving free expression to her one

dominant interest—the interest in Mr. Blake. “What is he doing? Has he

spoken of me? Is he in good spirits? How does he bear the sight of the

house, after what happened in it last year? When are you going to give

him the laudanum? May I see you pour it out? I am so interested; I am

so excited—I have ten thousand things to say to you, and they all crowd

together so that I don’t know what to say first. Do you wonder at the

interest I take in this?”

“No,” I said. “I venture to think that I thoroughly understand it.”

She was far above the paltry affectation of being confused. She

answered me as she might have answered a brother or a father.

“You have relieved me of indescribable wretchedness; you have given me

a new life. How can I be ungrateful enough to have any concealment from

_you?_ I love him,” she said simply, “I have loved him from first to

last—even when I was wronging him in my own thoughts; even when I was

saying the hardest and the cruellest words to him. Is there any excuse

for me, in that? I hope there is—I am afraid it is the only excuse I

have. When tomorrow comes, and he knows that I am in the house, do you

think——”

She stopped again, and looked at me very earnestly.

“When tomorrow comes,” I said, “I think you have only to tell him what

you have just told me.”

Her face brightened; she came a step nearer to me. Her fingers trifled

nervously with a flower which I had picked in the garden, and which I

had put into the button-hole of my coat.

“You have seen a great deal of him lately,” she said. “Have you, really

and truly, seen _that?_”

“Really and truly,” I answered. “I am quite certain of what will happen

tomorrow. I wish I could feel as certain of what will happen tonight.”

At that point in the conversation, we were interrupted by the

appearance of Betteredge with the tea-tray. He gave me another

significant look as he passed on into the sitting-room. “Aye! aye! make

your hay while the sun shines. The Tartar’s upstairs, Mr. Jennings—the

Tartar’s upstairs!”

We followed him into the room. A little old lady, in a corner, very

nicely dressed, and very deeply absorbed over a smart piece of

embroidery, dropped her work in her lap, and uttered a faint little

scream at the first sight of my gipsy complexion and my piebald hair.

“Mrs. Merridew,” said Miss Verinder, “this is Mr. Jennings.”

“I beg Mr. Jennings’s pardon,” said the old lady, looking at Miss

Verinder, and speaking at _me_. “Railway travelling always makes me

nervous. I am endeavouring to quiet my mind by occupying myself as

usual. I don’t know whether my embroidery is out of place, on this

extraordinary occasion. If it interferes with Mr. Jennings’s medical

views, I shall be happy to put it away of course.”

I hastened to sanction the presence of the embroidery, exactly as I had

sanctioned the absence of the burst buzzard and the Cupid’s wing. Mrs.

Merridew made an effort—a grateful effort—to look at my hair. No! it

was not to be done. Mrs. Merridew looked back again at Miss Verinder.

“If Mr. Jennings will permit me,” pursued the old lady, “I should like

to ask a favour. Mr. Jennings is about to try a scientific experiment

tonight. I used to attend scientific experiments when I was a girl at

school. They invariably ended in an explosion. If Mr. Jennings will be

so very kind, I should like to be warned of the explosion this time.

With a view to getting it over, if possible, before I go to bed.”

I attempted to assure Mrs. Merridew that an explosion was not included

in the programme on this occasion.

“No,” said the old lady. “I am much obliged to Mr. Jennings—I am aware

that he is only deceiving me for my own good. I prefer plain dealing. I

am quite resigned to the explosion—but I _do_ want to get it over, if

possible, before I go to bed.”

Here the door opened, and Mrs. Merridew uttered another little scream.

The advent of the explosion? No: only the advent of Betteredge.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Jennings,” said Betteredge, in his most

elaborately confidential manner. “Mr. Franklin wishes to know where you

are. Being under your orders to deceive him, in respect to the presence

of my young lady in the house, I have said I don’t know. That, you will

please to observe, was a lie. Having one foot already in the grave,

sir, the fewer lies you expect me to tell, the more I shall be indebted

to you, when my conscience pricks me and my time comes.”

There was not a moment to be wasted on the purely speculative question

of Betteredge’s conscience. Mr. Blake might make his appearance in

search of me, unless I went to him at once in his own room. Miss

Verinder followed me out into the corridor.

“They seem to be in a conspiracy to persecute you,” she said. “What

does it mean?”

“Only the protest of the world, Miss Verinder—on a very small

scale—against anything that is new.”

“What are we to do with Mrs. Merridew?”

“Tell her the explosion will take place at nine tomorrow morning.”

“So as to send her to bed?”

“Yes—so as to send her to bed.”

Miss Verinder went back to the sitting-room, and I went upstairs to Mr.

Blake.

To my surprise I found him alone; restlessly pacing his room, and a

little irritated at being left by himself.

“Where is Mr. Bruff?” I asked.

He pointed to the closed door of communication between the two rooms.

Mr. Bruff had looked in on him, for a moment; had attempted to renew

his protest against our proceedings; and had once more failed to

produce the smallest impression on Mr. Blake. Upon this, the lawyer had

taken refuge in a black leather bag, filled to bursting with

professional papers. “The serious business of life,” he admitted, “was

sadly out of place on such an occasion as the present. But the serious

business of life must be carried on, for all that. Mr. Blake would

perhaps kindly make allowance for the old-fashioned habits of a

practical man. Time was money—and, as for Mr. Jennings, he might depend

on it that Mr. Bruff would be forthcoming when called upon.” With that

apology, the lawyer had gone back to his own room, and had immersed

himself obstinately in his black bag.

I thought of Mrs. Merridew and her embroidery, and of Betteredge and

his conscience. There is a wonderful sameness in the solid side of the

English character—just as there is a wonderful sameness in the solid

expression of the English face.

“When are you going to give me the laudanum?” asked Mr. Blake

impatiently.

“You must wait a little longer,” I said. “I will stay and keep you

company till the time comes.”

It was then not ten o’clock. Inquiries which I had made, at various

times, of Betteredge and Mr. Blake, had led me to the conclusion that

the dose of laudanum given by Mr. Candy could not possibly have been

administered before eleven. I had accordingly determined not to try the

second dose until that time.

We talked a little; but both our minds were preoccupied by the coming

ordeal. The conversation soon flagged—then dropped altogether. Mr.

Blake idly turned over the books on his bedroom table. I had taken the

precaution of looking at them, when we first entered the room. _The

Guardian_; _The Tatler_; Richardson’s _Pamela_; Mackenzie’s _Man of

Feeling_; Roscoe’s _Lorenzo de’ Medici_; and Robertson’s _Charles the

Fifth_—all classical works; all (of course) immeasurably superior to

anything produced in later times; and all (from my present point of

view) possessing the one great merit of enchaining nobody’s interest,

and exciting nobody’s brain. I left Mr. Blake to the composing

influence of Standard Literature, and occupied myself in making this

entry in my journal.

My watch informs me that it is close on eleven o’clock. I must shut up

these leaves once more.

Two o’clock A.M.—The experiment has been tried. With what result, I am

now to describe.

At eleven o’clock, I rang the bell for Betteredge, and told Mr. Blake

that he might at last prepare himself for bed.

I looked out of the window at the night. It was mild and rainy,

resembling, in this respect, the night of the birthday—the twenty-first

of June, last year. Without professing to believe in omens, it was at

least encouraging to find no direct nervous influences—no stormy or

electric perturbations—in the atmosphere. Betteredge joined me at the

window, and mysteriously put a little slip of paper into my hand. It

contained these lines:

“Mrs. Merridew has gone to bed, on the distinct understanding that the

explosion is to take place at nine tomorrow morning, and that I am not

to stir out of this part of the house until she comes and sets me free.

She has no idea that the chief scene of the experiment is my

sitting-room—or she would have remained in it for the whole night! I am

alone, and very anxious. Pray let me see you measure out the laudanum;

I want to have something to do with it, even in the unimportant

character of a mere looker-on.—R.V.”

I followed Betteredge out of the room, and told him to remove the

medicine-chest into Miss Verinder’s sitting-room.

The order appeared to take him completely by surprise. He looked as if

he suspected me of some occult medical design on Miss Verinder! “Might

I presume to ask,” he said, “what my young lady and the medicine-chest

have got to do with each other?”

“Stay in the sitting-room, and you will see.”

Betteredge appeared to doubt his own unaided capacity to superintend me

effectually, on an occasion when a medicine-chest was included in the

proceedings.

“Is there any objection, sir” he asked, “to taking Mr. Bruff into this

part of the business?”

“Quite the contrary! I am now going to ask Mr. Bruff to accompany me

downstairs.”

Betteredge withdrew to fetch the medicine-chest, without another word.

I went back into Mr. Blake’s room, and knocked at the door of

communication. Mr. Bruff opened it, with his papers in his

hand—immersed in Law; impenetrable to Medicine.

“I am sorry to disturb you,” I said. “But I am going to prepare the

laudanum for Mr. Blake; and I must request you to be present, and to

see what I do.”

“Yes?” said Mr. Bruff, with nine-tenths of his attention riveted on his

papers, and with one-tenth unwillingly accorded to me. “Anything else?”

“I must trouble you to return here with me, and to see me administer

the dose.”

“Anything else?”

“One thing more. I must put you to the inconvenience of remaining in

Mr. Blake’s room, and of waiting to see what happens.”

“Oh, very good!” said Mr. Bruff. “My room, or Mr. Blake’s room—it

doesn’t matter which; I can go on with my papers anywhere. Unless you

object, Mr. Jennings, to my importing _that_ amount of common sense

into the proceedings?”

Before I could answer, Mr. Blake addressed himself to the lawyer,

speaking from his bed.

“Do you really mean to say that you don’t feel any interest in what we

are going to do?” he asked. “Mr. Bruff, you have no more imagination

than a cow!”

“A cow is a very useful animal, Mr. Blake,” said the lawyer. With that

reply he followed me out of the room, still keeping his papers in his

hand.

We found Miss Verinder, pale and agitated, restlessly pacing her

sitting-room from end to end. At a table in a corner stood Betteredge,

on guard over the medicine-chest. Mr. Bruff sat down on the first chair

that he could find, and (emulating the usefulness of the cow) plunged

back again into his papers on the spot.

Miss Verinder drew me aside, and reverted instantly to her one

all-absorbing interest—her interest in Mr. Blake.

“How is he now?” she asked. “Is he nervous? is he out of temper? Do you

think it will succeed? Are you sure it will do no harm?”

“Quite sure. Come, and see me measure it out.”

“One moment! It is past eleven now. How long will it be before anything

happens?”

“It is not easy to say. An hour perhaps.”

“I suppose the room must be dark, as it was last year?”

“Certainly.”

“I shall wait in my bedroom—just as I did before. I shall keep the door

a little way open. It was a little way open last year. I will watch the

sitting-room door; and the moment it moves, I will blow out my light.

It all happened in that way, on my birthday night. And it must all

happen again in the same way, musn’t it?”

“Are you sure you can control yourself, Miss Verinder?”

“In _his_ interests, I can do anything!” she answered fervently.

One look at her face told me that I could trust her. I addressed myself

again to Mr. Bruff.

“I must trouble you to put your papers aside for a moment,” I said.

“Oh, certainly!” He got up with a start—as if I had disturbed him at a

particularly interesting place—and followed me to the medicine-chest.

There, deprived of the breathless excitement incidental to the practice

of his profession, he looked at Betteredge—and yawned wearily.

Miss Verinder joined me with a glass jug of cold water, which she had

taken from a side-table. “Let me pour out the water,” she whispered. “I

_must_ have a hand in it!”

I measured out the forty minims from the bottle, and poured the

laudanum into a medicine glass. “Fill it till it is three parts full,”

I said, and handed the glass to Miss Verinder. I then directed

Betteredge to lock up the medicine chest; informing him that I had done

with it now. A look of unutterable relief overspread the old servant’s

countenance. He had evidently suspected me of a medical design on his

young lady!

After adding the water as I had directed, Miss Verinder seized a

moment—while Betteredge was locking the chest, and while Mr. Bruff was

looking back to his papers—and slyly kissed the rim of the medicine

glass. “When you give it to him,” said the charming girl, “give it to

him on that side!”

I took the piece of crystal which was to represent the Diamond from my

pocket, and gave it to her.

“You must have a hand in this, too,” I said. “You must put it where you

put the Moonstone last year.”

She led the way to the Indian cabinet, and put the mock Diamond into

the drawer which the real Diamond had occupied on the birthday night.

Mr. Bruff witnessed this proceeding, under protest, as he had witnessed

everything else. But the strong dramatic interest which the experiment

was now assuming, proved (to my great amusement) to be too much for

Betteredge’s capacity of self-restraint. His hand trembled as he held

the candle, and he whispered anxiously, “Are you sure, miss, it’s the

right drawer?”

I led the way out again, with the laudanum and water in my hand. At the

door, I stopped to address a last word to Miss Verinder.

“Don’t be long in putting out the lights,” I said.

“I will put them out at once,” she answered. “And I will wait in my

bedroom, with only one candle alight.”

She closed the sitting-room door behind us. Followed by Mr. Bruff and

Betteredge, I went back to Mr. Blake’s room.

We found him moving restlessly from side to side of the bed, and

wondering irritably whether he was to have the laudanum that night. In

the presence of the two witnesses, I gave him the dose, and shook up

his pillows, and told him to lie down again quietly and wait.

His bed, provided with light chintz curtains, was placed, with the head

against the wall of the room, so as to leave a good open space on

either side of it. On one side, I drew the curtains completely—and in

the part of the room thus screened from his view, I placed Mr. Bruff

and Betteredge, to wait for the result. At the bottom of the bed I half

drew the curtains—and placed my own chair at a little distance, so that

I might let him see me or not see me, speak to me or not speak to me,

just as the circumstances might direct. Having already been informed

that he always slept with a light in the room, I placed one of the two

lighted candles on a little table at the head of the bed, where the

glare of the light would not strike on his eyes. The other candle I

gave to Mr. Bruff; the light, in this instance, being subdued by the

screen of the chintz curtains. The window was open at the top, so as to

ventilate the room. The rain fell softly, the house was quiet. It was

twenty minutes past eleven, by my watch, when the preparations were

completed, and I took my place on the chair set apart at the bottom of

the bed.

Mr. Bruff resumed his papers, with every appearance of being as deeply

interested in them as ever. But looking towards him now, I saw certain

signs and tokens which told me that the Law was beginning to lose its

hold on him at last. The suspended interest of the situation in which

we were now placed was slowly asserting its influence even on _his_

unimaginative mind. As for Betteredge, consistency of principle and

dignity of conduct had become, in his case, mere empty words. He forgot

that I was performing a conjuring trick on Mr. Franklin Blake; he

forgot that I had upset the house from top to bottom; he forgot that I

had not read _Robinson Crusoe_ since I was a child. “For the Lord’s

sake, sir,” he whispered to me, “tell us when it will begin to work.”

“Not before midnight,” I whispered back. “Say nothing, and sit still.”

Betteredge dropped to the lowest depth of familiarity with me, without

a struggle to save himself. He answered by a wink!

Looking next towards Mr. Blake, I found him as restless as ever in his

bed; fretfully wondering why the influence of the laudanum had not

begun to assert itself yet. To tell him, in his present humour, that

the more he fidgeted and wondered, the longer he would delay the result

for which we were now waiting, would have been simply useless. The

wiser course to take was to dismiss the idea of the opium from his

mind, by leading him insensibly to think of something else.

With this view, I encouraged him to talk to me; contriving so to direct

the conversation, on my side, as to lead it back again to the subject

which had engaged us earlier in the evening—the subject of the Diamond.

I took care to revert to those portions of the story of the Moonstone,

which related to the transport of it from London to Yorkshire; to the

risk which Mr. Blake had run in removing it from the bank at

Frizinghall; and to the unexpected appearance of the Indians at the

house, on the evening of the birthday. And I purposely assumed, in

referring to these events, to have misunderstood much of what Mr. Blake

himself had told me a few hours since. In this way, I set him talking

on the subject with which it was now vitally important to fill his

mind—without allowing him to suspect that I was making him talk for a

purpose. Little by little, he became so interested in putting me right

that he forgot to fidget in the bed. His mind was far away from the

question of the opium, at the all-important time when his eyes first

told me that the opium was beginning to lay its hold on his brain.

I looked at my watch. It wanted five minutes to twelve, when the

premonitory symptoms of the working of the laudanum first showed

themselves to me.

At this time, no unpractised eyes would have detected any change in

him. But, as the minutes of the new morning wore away, the

swiftly-subtle progress of the influence began to show itself more

plainly. The sublime intoxication of opium gleamed in his eyes; the dew

of a stealthy perspiration began to glisten on his face. In five

minutes more, the talk which he still kept up with me, failed in

coherence. He held steadily to the subject of the Diamond; but he

ceased to complete his sentences. A little later, the sentences dropped

to single words. Then, there was an interval of silence. Then, he sat

up in bed. Then, still busy with the subject of the Diamond, he began

to talk again—not to me, but to himself. That change told me that the

first stage in the experiment was reached. The stimulant influence of

the opium had got him.

The time, now, was twenty-three minutes past twelve. The next half

hour, at most, would decide the question of whether he would, or would

not, get up from his bed, and leave the room.

In the breathless interest of watching him—in the unutterable triumph

of seeing the first result of the experiment declare itself in the

manner, and nearly at the time, which I had anticipated—I had utterly

forgotten the two companions of my night vigil. Looking towards them

now, I saw the Law (as represented by Mr. Bruff’s papers) lying

unheeded on the floor. Mr. Bruff himself was looking eagerly through a

crevice left in the imperfectly-drawn curtains of the bed. And

Betteredge, oblivious of all respect for social distinctions, was

peeping over Mr. Bruff’s shoulder.

They both started back, on finding that I was looking at them, like two

boys caught out by their schoolmaster in a fault. I signed to them to

take off their boots quietly, as I was taking off mine. If Mr. Blake

gave us the chance of following him, it was vitally necessary to follow

him without noise.

Ten minutes passed—and nothing happened. Then, he suddenly threw the

bed-clothes off him. He put one leg out of bed. He waited.

“I wish I had never taken it out of the bank,” he said to himself. “It

was safe in the bank.”

My heart throbbed fast; the pulses at my temples beat furiously. The

doubt about the safety of the Diamond was, once more, the dominant

impression in his brain! On that one pivot, the whole success of the

experiment turned. The prospect thus suddenly opened before me was too

much for my shattered nerves. I was obliged to look away from him—or I

should have lost my self-control.

There was another interval of silence.

When I could trust myself to look back at him he was out of his bed,

standing erect at the side of it. The pupils of his eyes were now

contracted; his eyeballs gleamed in the light of the candle as he moved

his head slowly to and fro. He was thinking; he was doubting—he spoke

again.

“How do I know?” he said. “The Indians may be hidden in the house.”

He stopped, and walked slowly to the other end of the room. He

turned—waited—came back to the bed.

“It’s not even locked up,” he went on. “It’s in the drawer of her

cabinet. And the drawer doesn’t lock.”

He sat down on the side of the bed. “Anybody might take it,” he said.

He rose again restlessly, and reiterated his first words.

“How do I know? The Indians may be hidden in the house.”

He waited again. I drew back behind the half curtain of the bed. He

looked about the room, with a vacant glitter in his eyes. It was a

breathless moment. There was a pause of some sort. A pause in the

action of the opium? a pause in the action of the brain? Who could

tell? Everything depended, now, on what he did next.

He laid himself down again on the bed!

A horrible doubt crossed my mind. Was it possible that the sedative

action of the opium was making itself felt already? It was not in my

experience that it should do this. But what is experience, where opium

is concerned? There are probably no two men in existence on whom the

drug acts in exactly the same manner. Was some constitutional

peculiarity in him, feeling the influence in some new way? Were we to

fail on the very brink of success?

No! He got up again abruptly. “How the devil am I to sleep,” he said,

“with _this_ on my mind?”

He looked at the light, burning on the table at the head of his bed.

After a moment, he took the candle in his hand.

I blew out the second candle, burning behind the closed curtains. I

drew back, with Mr. Bruff and Betteredge, into the farthest corner by

the bed. I signed to them to be silent, as if their lives had depended

on it.

We waited—seeing and hearing nothing. We waited, hidden from him by the

curtains.

The light which he was holding on the other side of us moved suddenly.

The next moment he passed us, swift and noiseless, with the candle in

his hand.

He opened the bedroom door, and went out.

We followed him along the corridor. We followed him down the stairs. We

followed him along the second corridor. He never looked back; he never

hesitated.

He opened the sitting-room door, and went in, leaving it open behind

him.

The door was hung (like all the other doors in the house) on large

old-fashioned hinges. When it was opened, a crevice was opened between

the door and the post. I signed to my two companions to look through

this, so as to keep them from showing themselves. I placed

myself—outside the door also—on the opposite side. A recess in the wall

was at my left hand, in which I could instantly hide myself, if he

showed any signs of looking back into the corridor.

He advanced to the middle of the room, with the candle still in his

hand: he looked about him—but he never looked back.

I saw the door of Miss Verinder’s bedroom, standing ajar. She had put

out her light. She controlled herself nobly. The dim white outline of

her summer dress was all that I could see. Nobody who had not known it

beforehand would have suspected that there was a living creature in the

room. She kept back, in the dark: not a word, not a movement escaped

her.

It was now ten minutes past one. I heard, through the dead silence, the

soft drip of the rain and the tremulous passage of the night air

through the trees.

After waiting irresolute, for a minute or more, in the middle of the

room, he moved to the corner near the window, where the Indian cabinet

stood.

He put his candle on the top of the cabinet. He opened, and shut, one

drawer after another, until he came to the drawer in which the mock

Diamond was put. He looked into the drawer for a moment. Then he took

the mock Diamond out with his right hand. With the other hand, he took

the candle from the top of the cabinet.

He walked back a few steps towards the middle of the room, and stood

still again.

Thus far, he had exactly repeated what he had done on the birthday

night. Would his next proceeding be the same as the proceeding of last

year? Would he leave the room? Would he go back now, as I believed he

had gone back then, to his bedchamber? Would he show us what he had

done with the Diamond, when he had returned to his own room?

His first action, when he moved once more, proved to be an action which

he had _not_ performed, when he was under the influence of the opium

for the first time. He put the candle down on a table, and wandered on

a little towards the farther end of the room. There was a sofa there.

He leaned heavily on the back of it, with his left hand—then roused

himself, and returned to the middle of the room. I could now see his

eyes. They were getting dull and heavy; the glitter in them was fast

dying out.

The suspense of the moment proved too much for Miss Verinder’s

self-control. She advanced a few steps—then stopped again. Mr. Bruff

and Betteredge looked across the open doorway at me for the first time.

The prevision of a coming disappointment was impressing itself on their

minds as well as on mine.

Still, so long as he stood where he was, there was hope. We waited, in

unutterable expectation, to see what would happen next.

The next event was decisive. He let the mock Diamond drop out of his

hand.

It fell on the floor, before the doorway—plainly visible to him, and to

every one. He made no effort to pick it up: he looked down at it

vacantly, and, as he looked, his head sank on his breast. He

staggered—roused himself for an instant—walked back unsteadily to the

sofa—and sat down on it. He made a last effort; he tried to rise, and

sank back. His head fell on the sofa cushions. It was then twenty-five

minutes past one o’clock. Before I had put my watch back in my pocket,

he was asleep.

It was all over now. The sedative influence had got him; the experiment

was at an end.

I entered the room, telling Mr. Bruff and Betteredge that they might

follow me. There was no fear of disturbing him. We were free to move

and speak.

“The first thing to settle,” I said, “is the question of what we are to

do with him. He will probably sleep for the next six or seven hours, at

least. It is some distance to carry him back to his own room. When I

was younger, I could have done it alone. But my health and strength are

not what they were—I am afraid I must ask you to help me.”

Before they could answer, Miss Verinder called to me softly. She met me

at the door of her room, with a light shawl, and with the counterpane

from her own bed.

“Do you mean to watch him while he sleeps?” she asked.

“Yes, I am not sure enough of the action of the opium in his case to be

willing to leave him alone.”

She handed me the shawl and the counterpane.

“Why should you disturb him?” she whispered. “Make his bed on the sofa.

I can shut my door, and keep in my room.”

It was infinitely the simplest and the safest way of disposing of him

for the night. I mentioned the suggestion to Mr. Bruff and

Betteredge—who both approved of my adopting it. In five minutes I had

laid him comfortably on the sofa, and had covered him lightly with the

counterpane and the shawl. Miss Verinder wished us good-night, and

closed the door. At my request, we three then drew round the table in

the middle of the room, on which the candle was still burning, and on

which writing materials were placed.

“Before we separate,” I began, “I have a word to say about the

experiment which has been tried tonight. Two distinct objects were to

be gained by it. The first of these objects was to prove, that Mr.

Blake entered this room, and took the Diamond, last year, acting

unconsciously and irresponsibly, under the influence of opium. After

what you have both seen, are you both satisfied, so far?”

They answered me in the affirmative, without a moment’s hesitation.

“The second object,” I went on, “was to discover what he did with the

Diamond, after he was seen by Miss Verinder to leave her sitting-room

with the jewel in his hand, on the birthday night. The gaining of this

object depended, of course, on his still continuing exactly to repeat

his proceedings of last year. He has failed to do that; and the purpose

of the experiment is defeated accordingly. I can’t assert that I am not

disappointed at the result—but I can honestly say that I am not

surprised by it. I told Mr. Blake from the first, that our complete

success in this matter depended on our completely reproducing in him

the physical and moral conditions of last year—and I warned him that

this was the next thing to a downright impossibility. We have only

partially reproduced the conditions, and the experiment has been only

partially successful in consequence. It is also possible that I may

have administered too large a dose of laudanum. But I myself look upon

the first reason that I have given, as the true reason why we have to

lament a failure, as well as to rejoice over a success.”

After saying those words, I put the writing materials before Mr. Bruff,

and asked him if he had any objection—before we separated for the

night—to draw out, and sign, a plain statement of what he had seen. He

at once took the pen, and produced the statement with the fluent

readiness of a practised hand.

“I owe you this,” he said, signing the paper, “as some atonement for

what passed between us earlier in the evening. I beg your pardon, Mr.

Jennings, for having doubted you. You have done Franklin Blake an

inestimable service. In our legal phrase, you have proved your case.”

Betteredge’s apology was characteristic of the man.

“Mr. Jennings,” he said, “when you read _Robinson Crusoe_ again (which

I strongly recommend you to do), you will find that he never scruples

to acknowledge it, when he turns out to have been in the wrong. Please

to consider me, sir, as doing what Robinson Crusoe did, on the present

occasion.” With those words he signed the paper in his turn.

Mr. Bruff took me aside, as we rose from the table.

“One word about the Diamond,” he said. “Your theory is that Franklin

Blake hid the Moonstone in his room. My theory is, that the Moonstone

is in the possession of Mr. Luker’s bankers in London. We won’t dispute

which of us is right. We will only ask, which of us is in a position to

put his theory to the test?”

“The test, in my case,” I answered, “has been tried tonight, and has

failed.”

“The test, in my case,” rejoined Mr. Bruff, “is still in process of

trial. For the last two days I have had a watch set for Mr. Luker at

the bank; and I shall cause that watch to be continued until the last

day of the month. I know that he must take the Diamond himself out of

his bankers’ hands—and I am acting on the chance that the person who

has pledged the Diamond may force him to do this by redeeming the

pledge. In that case I may be able to lay my hand on the person. If I

succeed, I clear up the mystery, exactly at the point where the mystery

baffles us now! Do you admit that, so far?”

I admitted it readily.

“I am going back to town by the morning train,” pursued the lawyer. “I

may hear, when I return, that a discovery has been made—and it may be

of the greatest importance that I should have Franklin Blake at hand to

appeal to, if necessary. I intend to tell him, as soon as he wakes,

that he must return with me to London. After all that has happened, may

I trust to your influence to back me?”

“Certainly!” I said.

Mr. Bruff shook hands with me, and left the room. Betteredge followed

him out.

I went to the sofa to look at Mr. Blake. He had not moved since I had

laid him down and made his bed—he lay locked in a deep and quiet sleep.

While I was still looking at him, I heard the bedroom door softly

opened. Once more, Miss Verinder appeared on the threshold, in her

pretty summer dress.

“Do me a last favour?” she whispered. “Let me watch him with you.”

I hesitated—not in the interests of propriety; only in the interest of

her night’s rest. She came close to me, and took my hand.

“I can’t sleep; I can’t even sit still, in my own room,” she said. “Oh,

Mr. Jennings, if you were me, only think how you would long to sit and

look at him. Say, yes! Do!”

Is it necessary to mention that I gave way? Surely not!

She drew a chair to the foot of the sofa. She looked at him in a silent

ecstasy of happiness, till the tears rose in her eyes. She dried her

eyes, and said she would fetch her work. She fetched her work, and

never did a single stitch of it. It lay in her lap—she was not even

able to look away from him long enough to thread her needle. I thought

of my own youth; I thought of the gentle eyes which had once looked

love at _me_. In the heaviness of my heart I turned to my Journal for

relief, and wrote in it what is written here.

So we kept our watch together in silence. One of us absorbed in his

writing; the other absorbed in her love.

Hour after hour he lay in his deep sleep. The light of the new day grew

and grew in the room, and still he never moved.

Towards six o’clock, I felt the warning which told me that my pains

were coming back. I was obliged to leave her alone with him for a

little while. I said I would go upstairs, and fetch another pillow for

him out of his room. It was not a long attack, this time. In a little

while I was able to venture back, and let her see me again.

I found her at the head of the sofa, when I returned. She was just

touching his forehead with her lips. I shook my head as soberly as I

could, and pointed to her chair. She looked back at me with a bright

smile, and a charming colour in her face. “You would have done it,” she

whispered, “in my place!”

It is just eight o’clock. He is beginning to move for the first time.

Miss Verinder is kneeling by the side of the sofa. She has so placed

herself that when his eyes first open, they must open on her face.

Shall I leave them together?

Yes!

Eleven o’clock.—The house is empty again. They have arranged it among

themselves; they have all gone to London by the ten o’clock train. My

brief dream of happiness is over. I have awakened again to the

realities of my friendless and lonely life.

I dare not trust myself to write down the kind words that have been

said to me—especially by Miss Verinder and Mr. Blake. Besides, it is

needless. Those words will come back to me in my solitary hours, and

will help me through what is left of the end of my life. Mr. Blake is

to write, and tell me what happens in London. Miss Verinder is to

return to Yorkshire in the autumn (for her marriage, no doubt); and I

am to take a holiday, and be a guest in the house. Oh me, how I felt,

as the grateful happiness looked at me out of her eyes, and the warm

pressure of her hand said, “This is your doing!”

My poor patients are waiting for me. Back again, this morning, to the

old routine! Back again, tonight, to the dreadful alternative between

the opium and the pain!

God be praised for His mercy! I have seen a little sunshine—I have had

a happy time.

FIFTH NARRATIVE.

_The Story resumed by Franklin Blake._