the Diamond found its way into the
moneylender's hands?"

"Towards the end of last June," I answered,
"as well as I can reckon it."

"And we are now in the year 'forty-eight.
Very good. If the unknown person who has
pledged the Moonstone can redeem it in a year,
the jewel will be in that person's possession
again at the end of June, 'forty-nine. I shall
be thousands of miles away from England and
English news at that date. But it may be
worth your while to take a note of it, and to
arrange to be in London at the time."

"You think something serious will happen?"
I said.

"I think I shall be safer," he answered,
"among the fiercest fanatics of Central Asia
than I should be if I crossed the door of the
bank with the Moonstone in my pocket. The
Indians have been defeated twice running, Mr.
Bruff. It's my firm belief that they won't be
defeated a third time."

Those were the last words he said on the
subject. The coffee came in; the guests rose,
and dispersed themselves about the room; and
we joined the ladies of the dinner-party
upstairs.

I made a note of the date, and it may not be
amiss if I close my narrative by repeating that
note here:

June, 'forty-nine. Expect news of the Indians,
towards the end of the month.

And that done, I hand the pen, which I have
now no further claim to use, to the writer who
follows me next.

THIRD NARRATIVE.
Contributed by Franklin Blake.
CHAPTER I.

IN the spring of the year eighteen hundred
and forty-nine I was wandering in the East,
and had then recently altered the travelling
plans which I had laid out some months before,
and which I had communicated to my lawyer
and my banker in London.

This change made it necessary for me to
send one of my servants to obtain my letters
and remittances from the English consul in
a certain city, which was no longer included
as one of rny resting places in my new travelling
scheme. The man was to join me again at an
appointed place and time. An accident, for
which he was not responsible, delayed him on
his errand. For a week I and my people
waited, encamped on the borders of a desert.
At the end of that time the missing man made
his appearance, with the money and the letters,
at the entrance of my tent.

"I am afraid I bring you bad news, sir," he
said, and pointed to one of the letters, which had
a mourning border round it, and the address on
which was in the handwriting of Mr. Bruff.

I know nothing, in a case of this kind, so
unendurable as suspense. The letter with the
mourning border was the letter that I opened
first.

It informed me that my father was dead, and
that I was heir to his great fortune.  The wealth
which had thus fallen into my hands brought its
responsibilities with it;  and Mr Bruff entreated
me to lose no time in returning to England.

By daybreak the next morning I was on
my way back to my own country.

The picture presented of me, by my old friend
Betteredge, at the time of my departure from
England, is (as I think) a little overdrawn.
He has, in his own quaint way, interpreted
seriously one of his young mistress's many
satirical references to my foreign education; and
has persuaded himself that he actually saw
those French, German, and Italian sides to my
character, which my lively cousin only professed
to discover in jest, and which never had any
real existence, except in our good Betteredge's
own brain. But, barring this drawback, I am
bound to own that he has stated no more than
the truth in representing me as wounded to the
heart by Rachel's treatment, and as leaving
England in the first keenness of suffering
caused by the bitterest disappointment of my
life.

I went abroad, resolved— if change and
absence could help me— to forget her. It is, I
am persuaded, no true view of human nature
which denies that change and absence do help
a man under these circumstances: they force his
attention away from the exclusive contemplation
of his own sorrow. I never forgot her; but
the pang of remembrance lost its worst bitterness,
little by little, as time, distance, and
novelty interposed themselves more and more
effectually between Rachel and me.

On the other hand, it is no less certain that,
with the act of turning homeward, the remedy
which had gained its ground so steadily, began
now, just as steadily, to drop back. The nearer I
drew to the country which she inhabited, and to
the prospect of seeing her again, the more
irresistibly her influence began to recover its hold
on me. On leaving England, she was the last
person in the world, whose name I would have
suffered to pass my lips. On returning to
England, she was the first person I inquired after,
when Mr. Bruff and I met again.

I was informed, of course, of all that had
happened in my absence: in other words, of all
that has been related here in continuation of
Betteredge's narrative— one circumstance only
being excepted. Mr. Bruff did not, at that
time, feel himself at liberty to inform me of the
motives which had privately influenced Rachel,
and Godfrey Ablewhite, in recalling the marriage
promise, on either side. I troubled him with
no embarrassing questions on this delicate
subject. It was relief enough to me, after the
jealous disappointment caused by hearing that
she had ever contemplated being Godfrey's
wife, to know that reflection had convicted her
of acting rashly, and that she had effected her
own release from her marriage engagement.

Having heard the story of the past, my next
inquiries (still inquiries after Rachel!) advanced