He looked into your room to see what was the
matter. He discovered you with the candle in
your hand, just leaving your bedchamber. He
heard you say to yourself, in a voice quite
unlike your own voice, "How do I know? The
Indians may be hidden in the house."

Up to that time, he had simply supposed
himself (in giving you the laudanum) to be
helping to make you the victim of a harmless
practical joke. It now occurred to him, that
the laudanum had taken some effect on you,
which had not been foreseen by the doctor, any
more than by himself. In the fear of an
accident happening, he followed you softly to see
what you would do.

He followed you to Miss Verinder's sitting-
room, and saw you go in. You left the door
open. He looked through the crevice thus
produced, between the door and the post, before
he ventured into the room himself.

In that position, he not only detected you in
taking the Diamond out of the drawer—he also
detected Miss Verinder, silently watching you
from her bedroom, through her open door. He
saw that she saw you take the Diamond, too.

Before you left the sitting-room again, you
hesitated a little. Mr. Godfrey took advantage
of this hesitation to get back again to
his bedroom before you came out, and
discovered him. He had barely got back, before
you got back too. You saw him (as he
supposes) just as he was passing through the door
of communication. At any rate, you called to
him in a strange, drowsy voice.

He came back to you. You looked at him in
a dull sleepy way. You put the Diamond into
his hand. You said to him, "Take it back,
Godfrey, to your father's bank. It's safe there
—it's not safe here," You turned away
unsteadily, and put on your dressing-gown. You
sat down in the large arm-chair in your room.
You said, "I can't take it back to the bank.
My head's like lead—and I can't feel my feet
under me." Your head sank on the back of
the chair—you heaved a heavy sigh—and you
fell asleep.

Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite went back, with the
Diamond, into his own room. His statement
is, that he came to no conclusion, at that time
—except that he would wait, and see what
happened in the morning.

When the morning came, your language and
conduct showed that you were absolutely ignorant
of what you had said and done overnight.
At the same time, Miss Verinder's language
and conduct showed that she was resolved to
say nothing (in mercy to you) on her side. If
Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite chose to keep the
Diamond, he might do so with perfect impunity.
The Moonstone stood between him, and ruin.
He put the Moonstone into his pocket.

v.

This was the story told by your cousin (under
pressure of necessity) to Mr. Luker.

Mr. Luker believed the story to be, as to all
main essentials, true—on this ground, that Mr.
Godfrey Ablewhite was too great a fool to have
invented it. Mr. Bruff and I agree with Mr.
Luker, in considering this test of the truth of
the story to be a perfectly reliable one.

The next question, was the question of what
Mr. Luker would do, in the matter of the
Moonstone. He proposed the following terms,
as the only terms on which he would consent
to mix himself up with, what was (even in
his line of business) a doubtful and dangerous
transaction.

Mr. Luker would consent to lend Mr.
Godfrey Ablewhite the sum of two thousand
pounds, on condition that the Moonstone was
to be deposited with him as a pledge. If, at
the expiration of one year from that date, Mr.
Godfrey Ablewhite paid three thousand pounds
to Mr. Luker, he was to receive back the
Diamond, as a pledge redeemed. If he failed to
produce the money at the expiration of the
year, the pledge (otherwise the Moonstone)
was to be considered as forfeited to Mr. Luker
—who would, in this latter case, generously
make Mr. Godfrey a present of certain
promissory notes of his (relating to former
dealings) which were then in the money-lender's
possession.

It is needless to say, that Mr. Godfrey
indignantly refused to listen to these monstrous
terms. Mr. Luker, thereupon, handed him back
the Diamond, and wished him good night.

Your cousin went to the door, and came back
again. How was he to be sure that the
conversation of that evening would be kept strictly
a secret between his friend and himself?

Mr. Luker didn't profess to know how. If
Mr. Godfrey had accepted his terms, Mr. Godfrey
would have made him an accomplice, and might
have counted on his silence as on a certainty.
As things were, Mr. Luker must be guided by
his own interests. If awkward inquiries were
made, how could he be expected to compromise
himself, for the sake of a man who had declined
to deal with him?

Receiving this reply, Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite
did, what all animals (human and otherwise) do,
when they find themselves caught in a trap.
He looked about him in a state of helpless
despair. The day of the month, recorded on a
neat little card in a box on the money-lender's
chimney-piece, happened to attract his eye.
It was the twenty-third of June. On the
twenty-fourth, he had three hundred pounds to
pay to the young gentleman for whom he was
trustee, and no chance of raising the money,
except the chance that Mr. Luker had offered to
him. But for this miserable obstacle, he might
have taken the Diamond to Amsterdam, and
have made a marketable commodity of it, by
having it cut up into separate stones. As
matters stood, he had no choice but to accept Mr.
Luker's terms. After all, he had a year at his
disposal, in which to raise the three thousand
pounds and a year is a long time.

Mr. Luker drew out the necessary documents
on the spot. When they were signed, he gave
Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite two cheques. One,