I waited a little before I trusted myself to
say any more. In tbat moment of silence, I
hardly know which I felt most keenly—the
sting which her contempt had planted in me, or
the proud resolution which shut me out from
all community with her distress.

"If you will not speak first," I said, "I
must. I have come here with something serious
to say to you. Will you do me the common
justice of listening while I say it?"

She neither moved, nor answered. I made no
second appeal to her; I never advanced an inch
nearer to her chair. With a pride which was
as obstinate as her pride, I told her of my
discovery at the Shivering Sand, and of all that
had led to it. The narrative, of necessity,
occupied some little time. From beginning to
end, she never looked round at me, and she
never uttered a word.

I kept my temper. My whole future
depended, in all probability, on my not losing
possession of myself at that moment. The time
had come to put Mr. Bruff's theory to the test.
In the breathless interest of trying that experiment,
I moved round so as to place myself in
front of her.

"I have a question to ask you," I said. "It
obliges me to refer again to a painful subject.
Did Rosanna Spearman show you the night-
gown? Yes, or No?"

She started to her feet; and walked close up
to me of her own accord. Her eyes looked me
searchingly in the face, as if to read something
there which they had never read yet.

"Are you mad?" she asked.

I still restrained myself. I said quietly,
"Rachel, will you answer my question?"

She went on, without heeding me.

"Have you some object to gain which I don't
understand? Some mean fear about the future,
in which I am concerned? They say your father's
death has made you a rich man. Have you
come here to compensate me for the loss of my
Diamond? And have you heart enough left to
feel ashamed of your errand? Is that the secret
of your pretence of innocence, and your story
about Rosanna Spearman? Is there a motive
of shame at the bottom of all the falsehood,
this time?"

I stopped her there. I could control myself
no longer.

"You have done me an infamous wrong!"
I broke out hotly. "You suspect me of stealing
your Diamond. I have a right to know, and
I will know, the reason why!"

"Suspect you!" she exclaimed, her anger
rising with mine. "You villain, I saw you take
the Diamond with my own eyes!"

The revelation which burst upon me in those
words, the overthrow which they instantly
accomplished of the whole view of the case on
which Mr. Bruff had relied, struck me helpless.
Innocent as I was, I stood before her in
silence. To her eyes, to any eyes, I must have
looked like a man overwhelmed by the discovery
of his own guilt.

She drew back from the spectacle of my
humiliation, and of her triumph. The sudden silence
that had fallen upon me seemed to frighten her.
"I spared you, at the time," she said. "I
would have spared you now, if you had not
forced me to speak." She moved away as if
to leave the room—and hesitated before she got
to the door. "Why did you come here to
humiliate yourself?" she asked. "Why did you
come here to humiliate me?" She went on
a few steps, and paused once more. "For
God's sake, say something!" she exclaimed,
passionately. "If you have any mercy left,
don't let me degrade myself in this way! Say
something—and drive me out of the room!"

I advanced towards her, hardly conscious of
what I was doing. I had possibly some
confused idea of detaining her until she had told
me more. From the moment when I knew that
the evidence on which I stood condemned in
Rachel's mind, was the evidence of her own
eyes, nothing—not even my conviction of my
own innocence—was clear in my mind. I took
her by the hand; I tried to speak firmly and to
the purpose. All I could say was, "Rachel,
you once loved me."

She shuddered, and looked away from me.
Her hand lay powerless and trembling in mine.
"Let go of it," she said faintly.

My touch seemed to have the same effect on
her which the sound of my voice had produced
when I first entered the room. After she had
said the word which called me a coward, after
she had made the avowal which branded me as
a thief—while her hand lay in mine I was her
master still!

I drew her gently back into the middle of
the room. I seated her by the side of me.
"Rachel," I said, "I can't explain the
contradiction in what I am going to tell you. I can
only speak the truth as you have spoken it.
You saw me—with your own eyes, you saw me
take the Diamond. Before God who hears us,
I declare that I now know I took it for the first
time! Do you doubt me still?"

She had neither heeded nor heard me. "Let
go of my hand," she repeated faintly. That
was her only answer. Her head sank on my
shoulder; and her hand unconsciously closed
on mine, at the moment when she asked me to
release it.

I refrained from pressing the question. But
there my forbearance stopped. My chance of
ever holding up my head again among honest
men depended on my chance of inducing her to
make her disclosure complete. The one hope
left for me was the hope that she might have
overlooked something in the chain of evidence
—some mere trifle, perhaps, which might
nevertheless, under careful investigation, be made
the means of vindicating my innocence in the
end. I own I kept possession of her hand. I
own I spoke to her with all that I could
summon back of the sympathy and the
confidence of the bygone time.

"I want to ask you something," I said. "I
want you to tell me everything that happened,
from the time when we wished each other good