Candy's lost recollection, is not the interest of
recovering the Moonstone. A serious personal
matter is at the bottom of my visit to Yorkshire.
I have but one excuse for not having
dealt frankly with you in this matter. It is
more painful to me than I can say, to mention
to anybody what my position really is."

Ezra Jennings looked at me with the first
appearance of embarrassment which I had seen
in him yet.

"I have no right, Mr. Blake, and no wish,"
he said, " to intrude myself into your private
affairs. Allow me to ask your pardon, on my
side, for having (most innocently) put you to a
painful test."

"You have a perfect right," I rejoined, "to
fix the terms on which you feel justified in
revealing what you heard at Mr. Candy's bedside.
I understand, and respect, the delicacy which
influences you in this matter. How can I expect
to be taken into your confidence, if I decline
to admit you into mine? You ought to know,
and you shall know, why I am interested in
discovering what Mr. Candy wanted to say to me.
If I turn out to be mistaken in my anticipations,
and if you prove unable to help me when you
are really aware of what I .want, I shall trust
to your honour to keep my secret——and
something tells me that I shall not trust in vain."

"Stop, Mr. Blake. I have a word to say,
which must be said before you go any
farther."

I looked at him in astonishment. The grip of
some terrible emotion seemed to have seized him,
and shaken him to the soul. His gipsy complexion
had altered to a livid greyish paleness;
his eyes had suddenly become wild and glittering;
his voice had dropped to a tone——low, stern, and
resolute——which I now heard for the first time.
The latent resources in the man, for good or
for evil——it was hard, at that moment, to say
which——leapt up in him and showed themselves
to me, with the suddenness of a flash of light.

"Before you place any confidence in me,"
he went on, "you ought to know, and you must
know, under what circumstances I have been
received into Mr. Candy's house. It won't
take long. I don't profess, sir, to tell my story
(as the phrase is) to any man. My story will
die with me. All I ask, is to be permitted to
tell you, what I have told Mr. Candy. If you
are still in the mind, when you have heard that,
to say what you have proposed to say, you will
command my attention, and command my
services. Shall we walk on?"

The suppressed misery in his face, silenced
me. I answered his question by a sign. We
walked on.

After advancing a few hundred yards, Ezra
Jennings stopped at a gap in the rough stone
wall which shut off the moor from the road, at
this part of it.

"Do you mind resting a little, Mr. Blake?"
he asked. " I am not what I was——and some
things shake me."

I agreed of course. He led the way through
the gap to a patch of turf on the heathyground,
screened by bushes and dwarf trees on
the side nearest to the road, and commanding
in the opposite direction a grandly desolate
view over the broad brown wilderness of the
moor. The clouds had gathered, within the last
half hour. The light was dull; the distance
was dim. The lovely face of Nature met us,
soft and still and colourless——met us without a
smile.

We sat down in silence. Ezra Jennings laid
aside his hat, and passed his hand wearily over
his forehead, wearily through his startling white
and black hair. He tossed his little nosegay of
wild flowers away from him, as if the remembrances
which it recalled were remembrances
which hurt him now.

"Mr. Blake!" he said, suddenly. " You are
in bad company. The cloud of a horrible
accusation has rested on me for years. I tell you
the worst at once. I am a man whose life is a
wreck, and whose character is gone."

I attempted to speak. He stopped me.

"No," he said. " Pardon me; not yet. Don't
commit yourself to expressions of sympathy
which you may afterwards wish to recal. I
have mentioned an accusation which has rested
on me for years. There are circumstances
in connexion with it that tell against me. I
cannot bring myself to acknowledge what the
accusation is. And I am incapable, perfectly
incapable, of proving my innocence. I can
only assert my innocence. I assert it, sir, on
my oath, as a Christian. It is useless to appeal
to my honour as a man."

He paused again. I looked round at him.
He never looked at me in return. His whole
being seemed to be absorbed in the agony of
recollecting, and in the effort to speak.

"There is much that I might say," he went
on, " about the merciless treatment of me by
my own family, and the merciless enmity to
which I have fallen a victim. But the harm is
done; the wrong is beyond all remedy now. I
decline to weary or distress you, sir, if I can help
it. At the outset of my career in this country,
the vile slander to which I have referred struck
me down at once and for ever. I resigned my
aspirations in my profession——obscurity was
the only hope left for me. I parted with the
woman I loved——how could I condemn her to
share my disgrace? A medical assistant's place
offered itself, in a remote corner of England. I
got the place. It promised me peace; it
promised me obscurity, as I thought. I was
wrong. Evil report, with time and chance to
help it, travels patiently, and travels far. The
accusation from which I had fled, followed me. I
got warning of its approach. I was able to leave
my situation voluntarily, with the testimonials
that I had earned. They got me another situation,
in another remote district. Time passed
again; and again the slander that was death to
my character found me out. On this occasion
I had no warning. My employer said, ' Mr.
Jennings, I have no complaint to make against
you; but you must set yourself right, or leave
me.' I had but one choice——I left him. It's