Godfrey's face. On his side, he looked down at
her with an indulgence so injudicious and so
ill-deserved, that I really felt called on to interfere.

"Rachel, darling!" I remonstrated, gently,
"true greatness and true courage are ever
modest."

"You are a very good fellow in your way,
Godfrey," she said—not taking the smallest
notice, observe, of me, and still speaking to her
cousin as if she was one young man addressing
another. "But I am quite sure you are not
great; I don't believe you possess any
extraordinary courage; and I am firmly persuaded—
if you ever had any modesty—that your lady-
worshippers relieved you of that virtue a good
many years since. You have some private
reason for not talking of your adventure in
Northumberland-street; and I mean to know it."

"My reason is the simplest imaginable, and
the most easily acknowledged," he answered,
still bearing with her. "I am tired of the
subject."

"You are tired of the subject? My dear
Godfrey, I am going to make a remark."

"What is it?"

"You live a great deal too much in the
society of women. And you have contracted
two very bad habits in consequence. You have
learnt to talk nonsense seriously, and you have
got into a way of telling fibs for the pleasure
of telling them. You can't go straight with
your lady-worshippers. I mean to make you go
straight with me. Come, and sit down. I am
brimful of downright questions; and I expect
you to be brimful of downright answers."

She actually dragged him across the room to
a chair by the window, where the light would
fall on his face. I deeply feel being obliged to
report such language, and to describe such
conduct. But, hemmed in as I am, between
Mr. Franklin Blake's cheque on one side and
my own sacred regard for truth on the other,
what am I to do? I looked at my aunt. She
sat unmoved; apparently in no way disposed
to interfere. I had never noticed this kind
of torpor in her before. It was, perhaps, the
reaction after the trying time she had had in
the country. Not a pleasant symptom to
remark, be it what it might, at dear Lady Verinder's
age, and with dear Lady Verinder's
autumnal exuberance of figure.

In the mean time, Rachel had settled herself
at the window with our amiable and forbearing
—our too forbearing—Mr. Godfrey. She
began the string of questions with which she
had threatened him, taking no more notice of
her mother, or of myself, than if we had not
been in the room.

"Have the police done anything, Godfrey?"

"Nothing whatever."

"It is certain, I suppose, that the three men
who laid the trap for you were the same three
men who afterwards laid the trap for Mr.
Luker?"

"Humanly speaking, my dear Rachel, there
can be no doubt of it."

"And not a trace of them has been
discovered?"

"Not a trace."

"It is thought—is it not?—that these three
men are the three Indians who came to our
house in the country."

"Some people think so."

"Do you think so?"

"My dear Rachel, they blindfolded me before
I could see their faces. I know nothing
whatever of the matter. How can I offer any
opinion on it?"

Even the angelic gentleness of Mr. Godfrey
was, you see, beginning to give way at last
under the persecution inflicted on him. Whether
unbridled curiosity, or ungovernable dread,
dictated Miss Verinder's questions I do not
presume to inquire. I only report that, on Mr.
Godfrey's attempting to rise, after giving her
the answer just described, she actually took
him by the two shoulders, and pushed him back
into his chair.—Oh, don't say this was immodest!
Don't even hint that the recklessness of guilty
terror could alone account for such conduct as
I have described! We must not judge others.
My Christian friends, indeed, indeed, indeed, we
must not judge others!

She went on with her questions, unabashed.
Earnest Biblical students will perhaps be
reminded—as I was reminded—of the blinded
children of the devil, who went on with their
orgies, unabashed, in the time before the
Flood.

"I want to know something about Mr.
Luker, Godfrey."

"l am again unfortunate, Rachel. No man
knows less of Mr. Luker than I do."

"You never saw him before you and he met
accidentally at the bank?"

"Never!"

"You have seen him since?"

"Yes. We have been examined together,
as well as separately, to assist the police."

"Mr. Luker was robbed of a receipt which
he had got from his banker's—was he not?
What was the receipt for?"

"For a valuable gem which he had placed in
the safe keeping of the bank."

"That's what the newspapers say. It may
be enough for the general reader; but it is not
enough for me. The banker's receipt must have
mentioned what the gem was?"

"The banker's receipt, Rachel—as I have
heard it described—mentioned nothing of the
kind. A valuable gem, belonging to Mr. Luker;
deposited by Mr. Luker; sealed with Mr.
Luker's seal; and only to be given up on Mr.
Luker's personal application. That was the
form, and that is all I know about it."

She waited a moment, after he had said that.
She looked at her mother, and sighed. She
looked back again at Mr. Godfrey, and went on.

"Some of our private affairs, at home," she
said, "seem to have got into the newspapers?"

"I grieve to say, it is so."

"And some idle people, perfect strangers to
us, are trying to trace a connexion between