together, I found the superior faculty of thinking
going on, more or less connectedly, in my
patient's mind, while the inferior faculty of
expression was in a state of almost complete
incapacity and confusion."

"One word!" I interposed, eagerly. "Did
my name occur in any of his wanderings?"

"You shall hear, Mr. Blake. Among my
written proofs of the assertion which I have
just advanced——or, I ought to say, among the
written experiments, tending to put my assertion
to the proof——there is one, in which your
name occurs. For nearly the whole of one
night, Mr. Candy's inind was occupied with
something between himself and you. I have
got the broken words, as they dropped from
his lips, on one sheet of paper. And I have
got the links of my own discovering which
connect those words together, on another
sheet of paper. The product (as the arithmeticians
would say) is an intelligible statement
——first, of something actually done in the
past; secondly, of something which Mr. Candy
contemplated doing in the future, if his illness
had not got in the way, and stopped him. The
question is whether this does, or does not,
represent the lost recollection which he vainly
attempted to find when you called on him this
morning?"

"Not a doubt of it!" I answered. " Let us
go back directly, and look at the papers!"

"Quite impossible, Mr. Blake."

"Why?"

"Put yourself in my position for a moment,"
said Ezra Jennings. " Would you disclose to
another person what had dropped unconsciously
from the lips of your suffering patient and your
helpless friend, without first knowing that there
was a necessity to justify you in opening your
lips?"

I felt that he was unanswerable, here; but I
tried to argue the question, nevertheless.

"My conduct in such a delicate matter as
you describe," I replied, " would depend greatly
on whether the disclosure was of a nature to
compromise my friend, or not."

"I have disposed of all necessity for considering
that side of the question, long since,"
said Ezra Jennings. " Wherever my notes
included anything which Mr. Candy might have
wished to keep secret, those notes have been
destroyed. My manuscript-experiments at my
friend's bedside, include nothing, now, which he
would have hesitated to communicate to others,
if he had recovered the use of his memory. In
your case, I have even reason to suppose that
my notes contain something which he actually
wished to say to you——"

"And yet, you hesitate?"

"And yet, I hesitate. Remember the circumstances,
under which I obtained the information
which I possess! Harmless as it is, I cannot
prevail upon myself to give it up to you, unless
you first satisfy me that there is a reason for
doing so. He was so miserably ill, Mr. Blake!
and he was so helplessly dependent upon Me!
Is it too much to ask, if I request you only to
hint to me what your interest is in the lost
recollection——or what you believe that lost
recollection to be?"

To have answered him with the frankness
which his language and his manner both claimed
from me, would have been to commit myself to
openly acknowledging that I was suspected of
the theft of the Diamond. Strongly as Ezra
Jennings had intensified the first impulsive
interest which I had felt in him, he had not
overcome my unconquerable reluctance to disclose
the degrading position in which I stood. I
took refuge once more in the explanatory phrases
with which I had prepared myself to meet the
curiosity of strangers.

This time, I had no reason to complain of a
want of attention on the part of the person to
whom I addressed myself. Ezra Jennings
listened patiently, even anxiously, until I had
done.

"I am sorry to have raised your expectations,
Mr. Blake, only to disappoint them," he said.
'' Throughout the whole period of Mr. Candy's
illness, from first to last, not one word about
the Diamond escaped his lips. The matter with
which I heard him connect your name has, I
can assure you, no discpverable relation
whatever with the loss or the recovery of Miss
Verinder's jewel."

We arrived, as he said those words, at a
place where the highway along which we had
been walking, branched off into two roads.
One led to Mr. Ablewhite's house; and the
other to a moorland village some two or three
miles off. Ezra Jennings stopped at the road
which led to the village.

"My way lies in this direction," he said. " I
am really and truly sorry, Mr. Blake, that I can
be of no use to you."

His voice told me that he spoke sincerely.
His soft brown eyes rested on me for a moment
with a look of melancholy interest. He bowed,
and went, without another word, on his way to
the village.

For a minute or more, I stood and watched
him, walking farther and farther away from me;
carrying farther and farther away with him what
I now firmly believed to be the clue of which I
was in search. He turned, after walking on a
little way, and looked back. Seeing me still
standing at the place where we had parted, he
stopped, as if doubting whether I might not
wish to speak to him again. There was no time
for me to reason out my own situation——to
remind myself that I was losing my opportunity,
at what might be the turning point of my life,
and all to flatter nothing more important than
my own self-esteem! There was only time to
call him back first, and to think afterwards. I
suspect I am one of the rashest of existing men.
I called him back——and then I said to myself,
"Now there is no help for it. I must tell him
the truth!"

He retraced his steps directly. I advanced
along the road to meet him.

"Mr. Jennings," I said, "I have not treated
you quite fairly. My interest in tracing Mr.