"When you moved, I moved."

"So as to see what I was about with my
hands?"

"There are three glasses in my sitting-room.
As you stood there, I saw all that you did,
reflected in one of them."

"What did you see?"

"You put your candle on the top of the
cabinet. You opened, and shut, one drawer
after another, until you came to the drawer in
which I had put my Diamond. You looked at
the open drawer for a moment. And then you
put your hand in, and took the Diamond out."

"How do you know I took the Diamond
out?"

"I saw your hand go into the drawer. And
I saw the gleam of the stone, between your
finger and thumb, when you took your hand
out."

"Did my hand approach the drawer again—
to close it, for instance?"

"No. You had the Diamond in your right
hand; and you took the candle from the top of
the cabinet with your left hand."

"Did I look about me again, after that?"

"No."

"Did I leave the room immediately?"

"No. You stood quite still, for what seemed
a long time. I saw your face sideways in the
glass. You looked like a man thinking, and
dissatisfied with his own thoughts."

"What happened next?"

"You roused yourself on a sudden, and you
went straight out of the room."

"Did I close the door after me?"

"No. You passed out quickly into the
passage, and left the door open."

"And then?"

"Then, your light disappeared, and the sound
of your steps died away, and I was left alone in
the dark."

"Did nothing happen—from that time, to
the time when the whole house knew that the
Diamond was lost?"

"Nothing."

"Are you sure of that? Might you not
have been asleep a part of the time?"

"I never slept. I never went back to my
bed. Nothing happened until Penelope came
in, at the usual time in the morning."

I dropped her hand, and rose, and took a
turn in the room. Every question that I could
put had been answered. Every detail that I
could desire to know had been placed before
me. I had even reverted to the idea of sleep-
walking, and the idea of intoxication; and,
again, the worthlessness of the one theory and
the other had been proved—on the authority,
this time, of the witness who had seen me.
What was to be said next? what was to be
done next? There rose the horrible fact of the
Theft—the one visible, tangible object that
confronted me, in the midst of the impenetrable
darkness which enveloped all besides! Not a
glimpse of light to guide me, when I had
possessed myself of Rosanna Spearman's secret at
the Shivering Sand. And not a glimpse of
light now, when I had appealed to Rachel
herself, and had heard the hateful story of the
night from her own lips.

She was the first, this time, to break the
silence.

"Well?" she said, "you have asked, and I
have answered. You have made me hope
something from all this, because you hoped something
from it. What have you to say now?"

The tone in which she spoke warned me that
my influence over her was a lost influence once
more.

"We were to look at what happened on my
birthday night, together," she went on; "and
we were then to understand each other. Have
we done that?"

She waited pitilessly for my reply. In answering
her I committed a fatal error—I let the
exasperating helplessness of my situation get the
better of my self-control. Rashly and uselessly,
I reproached her for the silence which had
kept me until that moment in ignorance of the
truth.

"If you had spoken when you ought to have
spoken," I began; "if you had done me the
common justice to explain yourself—"

She broke in on me with a cry of fury. The
few words I had said seemed to have lashed
her on the instant into a frenzy of rage.

"Explain myself!" she repeated. "Oh! is
there another man like this in the world? I
spare him, when my heart is breaking; I screen
him when my own character is at stake; and
he—of all human beings, he—turns on me now,
and tells me that I ought to have explained
myself! After believing in him as I did, after
loving him as I did, after thinking of him by
day, and dreaming of him by night—he wonders
why I didn't charge him with his disgrace the
first time we met: 'My heart's darling, you are
a Thief! My hero whom I love and honour,
you have crept into my room under cover of
the night, and stolen my Diamond!' That is
what I ought to have said. You villain, you
mean, mean, mean villain, I would have lost
fifty Diamonds, rather than see your face lying
to me, as I see it lying now!"

I took up my hat. In mercy to her—yes! I
can honestly say it—in mercy to her, I turned
away without a word, and opened the door by
which I had entered the room.

She followed, and snatched the door out of
my hand; she closed it, and pointed back to the
place that I had left.

"No!" she said. "Not yet! It seems that
I owe a justification of my conduct to you.
You shall stay and hear it. Or you shall
stoop to the lowest infamy of all, and force your
way out."

It wrung my heart to see her; it wrung my
heart to hear it. I answered by a sign—it
was all I could do—that I submitted myself to
her will.

The crimson flush of anger began to fade out
of her face, as I went back, and took my chair
in silence. She waited a little, and steadied
herself. When she went on, but one sign of