THE MOONSTONE.

BY THE AUTHOR or "THE WOMAN IN WHITE," &c. &c.

CHAPTER XI.

WHEN the last of the guests had driven
away, I went back into the inner hall, and
found Samuel at the side-table, presiding over
the brandy and soda-water. My lady and Miss
Rachel came out of the drawing-room, followed
by the two gentlemen. Mr. Godfrey had some
brandy and soda-water. Mr. Franklin took
nothing. He sat down, looking dead tired: the
talking on this birthday occasion had, I suppose,
been too much for him.

My lady, turning round to wish them good
night, looked hard at the wicked Colonel's
legacy shining in her daughter's dress.

"Rachel," she asked, "where are you going
to put your Diamond to-night?"

Miss Rachel was in high good spirits, just in
that humour for talking nonsense, and
perversely persisting in it as if it was sense, which
you may sometimes have observed in young
girls, when they are highly wrought up, at the
end of an exciting day. First, she declared she
didn't know where to put the Diamond. Then
she said, "on her dressing-table, of course,
along with her other things." Then she
remembered that the Diamond might take to
shining of itself, with its awful moony light, in
the dark, and that would terrify her in the dead
of night. Then she bethought herself of an
Indian cabinet which stood in her sitting-room;
and instantly made up her mind to put the
Indian diamond in the Indian cabinet, for
the purpose of permitting two beautiful native
productions to admire each other. Having
let her little flow of nonsense run on as far as
that point, her mother interposed and stopped
her.

"My dear! your Indian cabinet has no lock
to it," says my lady.

"Good Heavens, mamma!" cries Miss Rachel,
"is this an hotel? Are there thieves in the
house?"

Without taking notice of this fantastic way
of talking, my lady wished the gentlemen good
night. She next turned to Miss Rachel, and
kissed her. "Why not let me keep the
Diamond for you to-night?" she asked.

Miss Rachel received that proposal as she
might, ten years since, have received a proposal
to part her from a new doll. My lady saw there
was no reasoning with her that night. "Come
into my room, Rachel, the first thing to-morrow
morning," she said. "I shall have something
to say to you." With those last words she
left us slowly; thinking her own thoughts, and,
to all appearance, not best pleased with the way
by which they were leading her.

Miss Rachel was the next to say good-night.
She shook hands first with Mr. Godfrey, who
was standing at the other end of the hall, looking
at a picture. Then she turned back to Mr.
Franklin, still sitting weary and silent in a
corner.

What words passed between them I can't say.
But standing near the old oak frame which holds
our large looking-glass, I saw her, reflected in
it, slyly slipping the locket which Mr. Franklin
had given to her, out of the bosom of her dress,
and showing it to him for a moment, with a
smile which certainly meant something out of
the common, before she tripped off to bed. This
incident staggered me a little in the reliance I
had previously felt on my own judgment. I
began to think that Penelope might be right
about the state of her young lady's affections,
after all.

As soon as Miss Rachel left him eyes to see
with, Mr. Franklin noticed me. His variable
humour, shifting about everything, had shifted
about the Indians already.

"Betteredge," he said, "I'm half inclined to
think I took Mr. Murthwaite too seriously,
when we had that talk in the shrubbery. I
wonder whether he has been trying any of his
traveller's tales on us? Do you really mean to
let the dogs loose?"

"I'll relieve them of their collars, sir," I
answered, "and leave them free to take a turn
in the night, if they smell a reason for it."

"All right," says Mr. Franklin. "We'll see
what is to be done to-morrow. I am not at all
disposed to alarm my aunt, Betteredge, without
a very pressing reason for it. Good night."

He looked so worn and pale as he nodded to
me, and took his candle to go upstairs, that I
ventured to advise his having a drop of brandy
and water, by way of nightcap. Mr. Godfrey,
walking towards us from the other end of the
hall, backed me. He pressed Mr. Franklin, in