i have not a word to say about my own sensations.

my impression is that the shock inflicted on me completely suspended my thinking and feeling power. i certainly could not have known what i was about when betteredge joined me—for i have it on his authority that i laughed, when he asked what was the matter, and putting the nightgown into his hands, told him to read the riddle for himself.

of what was said between us on the beach, i have not the faintest recollection. the first place in which i can now see myself again plainly is the plantation of firs. betteredge and i are walking back together to the house; and betteredge is telling me that i shall be able to face it, and he will be able to face it, when we have had a glass of grog.

the scene shifts from the plantation, to betteredge’s little sitting-room. my resolution not to enter rachel’s house is forgotten. i feel gratefully the coolness and shadiness and quiet of the room. i drink the grog (a perfectly new luxury to me, at that time of day), which my good old friend mixes with icy-cold water from the well. under any other circumstances, the drink would simply stupefy me. as things are, it strings up my nerves. i begin to “face it,” as betteredge has predicted. and betteredge, on his side, begins to “face it,” too.

the picture which i am now presenting of myself, will, i suspect, be thought a very strange one, to say the least of it. placed in a situation which may, i think, be described as entirely without parallel, what is the first proceeding to which i resort? do i seclude myself from all human society? do i set my mind to analyse the abominable impossibility which, nevertheless, confronts me as an undeniable fact? do i hurry back to london by the first train to consult the highest authorities, and to set a searching inquiry on foot immediately? no. i accept the shelter of a house which i had resolved never to degrade myself by entering again; and i sit, tippling spirits and water in the company of an old servant, at ten o’clock in the morning. is this the conduct that might have been expected from a man placed in my horrible position? i can only answer that the sight of old betteredge’s familiar face was an inexpressible comfort to me, and that the drinking of old betteredge’s grog helped me, as i believe nothing else would have helped me, in the state of complete bodily and mental prostration into which i had fallen. i can only offer this excuse for myself; and i can only admire that invariable preservation of dignity, and that strictly logical consistency of conduct which distinguish every man and woman who may read these lines, in every emergency of their lives from the cradle to the grave.

“now, mr. franklin, there’s one thing certain, at any rate,” said betteredge, throwing the nightgown down on the table between us, and pointing to it as if it was a living creature that could hear him. “he’s a liar, to begin with.”

this comforting view of the matter was not the view that presented itself to my mind.

“i am as innocent of all knowledge of having taken the diamond as you are,” i said. “but there is the witness against me! the paint on the nightgown, and the name on the nightgown are facts.”

betteredge lifted my glass, and put it persuasively into my hand.

“facts?” he repeated. “take a drop more grog, mr. franklin, and you’ll get over the weakness of believing in facts! foul play, sir!” he continued, dropping his voice confidentially. “that is how i read the riddle. foul play somewhere—and you and i must find it out. was there nothing else in the tin case, when you put your hand into it?”

the question instantly reminded me of the letter in my pocket. i took it out, and opened it. it was a letter of many pages, closely written. i looked impatiently for the signature at the end. “rosanna spearman.”

as i read the name, a sudden remembrance illuminated my mind, and a sudden suspicion rose out of the new light.

“stop!” i exclaimed. “rosanna spearman came to my aunt out of a reformatory? rosanna spearman had once been a thief?”

“there’s no denying that, mr. franklin. what of it now, if you please?”

“what of it now? how do we know she may not have stolen the diamond after all? how do we know she may not have smeared my nightgown purposely with the paint?”

betteredge laid his hand on my arm, and stopped me before i could say any more.

“you will be cleared of this, mr. franklin, beyond all doubt. but i hope you won’t be cleared in that way. see what the letter says, sir. in justice to the girl’s memory, see what it says.”

i felt the earnestness with which he spoke—felt it as a friendly rebuke to me. “you shall form your own judgment on her letter,” i said. “i will read it out.”

i began—and read these lines:

“sir—i have something to own to you. a confession which means much misery, may sometimes be made in very few words. this confession can be made in three words. i love you.”

the letter dropped from my hand. i looked at betteredge. “in the name of heaven,” i said, “what does it mean?”

he seemed to shrink from answering the question.

“you and limping lucy were alone together this morning, sir,” he said. “did she say nothing about rosanna spearman?”

“she never even mentioned rosanna spearman’s name.”

“please to go back to the letter, mr. franklin. i tell you plainly, i can’t find it in my heart to distress you, after what you have had to bear already. let her speak for herself, sir. and get on with your grog. for your own sake, get on with your grog.”

i resumed the reading of the letter.

“it would be very disgraceful to me to tell you this, if i was a living woman when you read it. i shall be dead and gone, sir, when you find my letter. it is that which makes me bold. not even my grave will be left to tell of me. i may own the truth—with the quicksand waiting to hide me when the words are written.

“besides, you will find your nightgown in my hiding-place, with the smear of the paint on it; and you will want to know how it came to be hidden by me? and why i said nothing to you about it in my life-time? i have only one reason to give. i did these strange things, because i loved you.

“i won’t trouble you with much about myself, or my life, before you came to my lady’s house. lady verinder took me out of a reformatory. i had gone to the reformatory from the prison. i was put in the prison, because i was a thief. i was a thief, because my mother went on the streets when i was quite a little girl. my mother went on the streets, because the gentleman who was my father deserted her. there is no need to tell such a common story as this, at any length. it is told quite often enough in the newspapers.

“lady verinder was very kind to me, and mr. betteredge was very kind to me. those two, and the matron at the reformatory, are the only good people i have ever met with in all my life. i might have got on in my place—not happily—but i might have got on, if you had not come visiting. i don’t blame you, sir. it’s my fault—all my fault.

“do you remember when you came out on us from among the sandhills, that morning, looking for mr. betteredge? you were like a prince in a fairy-story. you were like a lover in a dream. you were the most adorable human creature i had ever seen. something that felt like the happy life i had never led yet, leapt up in me at the instant i set eyes on you. don’t laugh at this if you can help it. oh, if i could only make you feel how serious it is to me!

“i went back to the house, and wrote your name and mine in my work-box, and drew a true lovers’ knot under them. then, some devil—no, i ought to say some good angel—whispered to me, ‘go and look in the glass.’ the glass told me—never mind what. i was too foolish to take the warning. i went on getting fonder and fonder of you, just as if i was a lady in your own rank of life, and the most beautiful creature your eyes ever rested on. i tried—oh, dear, how i tried—to get you to look at me. if you had known how i used to cry at night with the misery and the mortification of your never taking any notice of me, you would have pitied me perhaps, and have given me a look now and then to live on.

“it would have been no very kind look, perhaps, if you had known how i hated miss rachel. i believe i found out you were in love with her, before you knew it yourself. she used to give you roses to wear in your button-hole. ah, mr. franklin, you wore my roses oftener than either you or she thought! the only comfort i had at that time, was putting my rose secretly in your glass of water, in place of hers—and then throwing her rose away.

“if she had been really as pretty as you thought her, i might have borne it better. no; i believe i should have been more spiteful against her still. suppose you put miss rachel into a servant’s dress, and took her ornaments off? i don’t know what is the use of my writing in this way. it can’t be denied that she had a bad figure; she was too thin. but who can tell what the men like? and young ladies may behave in a manner which would cost a servant her place. it’s no business of mine. i can’t expect you to read my letter, if i write it in this way. but it does stir one up to hear miss rachel called pretty, when one knows all the time that it’s her dress does it, and her confidence in herself.

“try not to lose patience with me, sir. i will get on as fast as i can to the time which is sure to interest you—the time when the diamond was lost.

“but there is one thing which i have got it on my mind to tell you first.

“my life was not a very hard life to bear, while i was a thief. it was only when they had taught me at the reformatory to feel my own degradation, and to try for better things, that the days grew long and weary. thoughts of the future forced themselves on me now. i felt the dreadful reproach that honest people—even the kindest of honest people—were to me in themselves. a heart-breaking sensation of loneliness kept with me, go where i might, and do what i might, and see what persons i might. it was my duty, i know, to try and get on with my fellow-servants in my new place. somehow, i couldn’t make friends with them. they looked (or i thought they looked) as if they suspected what i had been. i don’t regret, far from it, having been roused to make the effort to be a reformed woman—but, indeed, indeed it was a weary life. you had come across it like a beam of sunshine at first—and then you too failed me. i was mad enough to love you; and i couldn’t even attract your notice. there was great misery—there really was great misery in that.

“now i am coming to what i wanted to tell you. in those days of bitterness, i went two or three times, when it was my turn to go out, to my favourite place—the beach above the shivering sand. and i said to myself, ‘i think it will end here. when i can bear it no longer, i think it will end here.’ you will understand, sir, that the place had laid a kind of spell on me before you came. i had always had a notion that something would happen to me at the quicksand. but i had never looked at it, with the thought of its being the means of my making away with myself, till the time came of which i am now writing. then i did think that here was a place which would end all my troubles for me in a moment or two—and hide me for ever afterwards.

“this is all i have to say about myself, reckoning from the morning when i first saw you, to the morning when the alarm was raised in the house that the diamond was lost.

“i was so aggravated by the foolish talk among the women servants, all wondering who was to be suspected first; and i was so angry with you (knowing no better at that time) for the pains you took in hunting for the jewel, and sending for the police, that i kept as much as possible away by myself, until later in the day, when the officer from frizinghall came to the house.

“mr. seegrave began, as you may remember, by setting a guard on the women’s bedrooms; and the women all followed him upstairs in a rage, to know what he meant by the insult he had put on them. i went with the rest, because if i had done anything different from the rest, mr. seegrave was the sort of man who would have suspected me directly. we found him in miss rachel’s room. he told us he wouldn’t have a lot of women there; and he pointed to the smear on the painted door, and said some of our petticoats had done the mischief, and sent us all downstairs again.

“after leaving miss rachel’s room, i stopped a moment on one of the landings, by myself, to see if i had got the paint-stain by any chance on my gown. penelope betteredge (the only one of the women with whom i was on friendly terms) passed, and noticed what i was about.

“‘you needn’t trouble yourself, rosanna,’ she said. ‘the paint on miss rachel’s door has been dry for hours. if mr. seegrave hadn’t set a watch on our bedrooms, i might have told him as much. i don’t know what you think—i was never so insulted before in my life!’

“penelope was a hot-tempered girl. i quieted her, and brought her back to what she had said about the paint on the door having been dry for hours.

“‘how do you know that?’ i asked.

“‘i was with miss rachel, and mr. franklin, all yesterday morning,’ penelope said, ‘mixing the colours, while they finished the door. i heard miss rachel ask whether the door would be dry that evening, in time for the birthday company to see it. and mr. franklin shook his head, and said it wouldn’t be dry in less than twelve hours. it was long past luncheon-time—it was three o’clock before they had done. what does your arithmetic say, rosanna? mine says the door was dry by three this morning.’

“‘did some of the ladies go upstairs yesterday evening to see it?’ i asked. ‘i thought i heard miss rachel warning them to keep clear of the door.’

“‘none of the ladies made the smear,’ penelope answered. ‘i left miss rachel in bed at twelve last night. and i noticed the door, and there was nothing wrong with it then.’

“‘oughtn’t you to mention this to mr. seegrave, penelope?’

“‘i wouldn’t say a word to help mr. seegrave for anything that could be offered to me!’

“she went to her work, and i went to mine.”

“my work, sir, was to make your bed, and to put your room tidy. it was the happiest hour i had in the whole day. i used to kiss the pillow on which your head had rested all night. no matter who has done it since, you have never had your clothes folded as nicely as i folded them for you. of all the little knick-knacks in your dressing-case, there wasn’t one that had so much as a speck on it. you never noticed it, any more than you noticed me. i beg your pardon; i am forgetting myself. i will make haste, and go on again.

“well, i went in that morning to do my work in your room. there was your nightgown tossed across the bed, just as you had thrown it off. i took it up to fold it—and i saw the stain of the paint from miss rachel’s door!

“i was so startled by the discovery that i ran out with the nightgown in my hand, and made for the back stairs, and locked myself into my own room, to look at it in a place where nobody could intrude and interrupt me.

“as soon as i got my breath again, i called to mind my talk with penelope, and i said to myself, ‘here’s the proof that he was in miss rachel’s sitting-room between twelve last night, and three this morning!’

“i shall not tell you in plain words what was the first suspicion that crossed my mind, when i had made that discovery. you would only be angry—and, if you were angry, you might tear my letter up and read no more of it.

“let it be enough, if you please, to say only this. after thinking it over to the best of my ability, i made it out that the thing wasn’t likely, for a reason that i will tell you. if you had been in miss rachel’s sitting-room, at that time of night, with miss rachel’s knowledge (and if you had been foolish enough to forget to take care of the wet door) she would have reminded you—she would never have let you carry away such a witness against her, as the witness i was looking at now! at the same time, i own i was not completely certain in my own mind that i had proved my own suspicion to be wrong. you will not have forgotten that i have owned to hating miss rachel. try to think, if you can, that there was a little of that hatred in all this. it ended in my determining to keep the nightgown, and to wait, and watch, and see what use i might make of it. at that time, please to remember, not the ghost of an idea entered my head that you had stolen the diamond.”

there, i broke off in the reading of the letter for the second time.

i had read those portions of the miserable woman’s confession which related to myself, with unaffected surprise, and, i can honestly add, with sincere distress. i had regretted, truly regretted, the aspersion which i had thoughtlessly cast on her memory, before i had seen a line of her letter. but when i had advanced as far as the passage which is quoted above, i own i felt my mind growing bitterer and bitterer against rosanna spearman as i went on. “read the rest for yourself,” i said, handing the letter to betteredge across the table. “if there is anything in it that i must look at, you can tell me as you go on.”

“i understand you, mr. franklin,” he answered. “it’s natural, sir, in you. and, god help us all!” he added, in a lower tone, “it’s no less natural in her.”

i proceed to copy the continuation of the letter from the original, in my own possession:—

“having determined to keep the nightgown, and to see what use my love, or my revenge (i hardly know which) could turn it to in the future, the next thing to discover was how to keep it without the risk of being found out.

“there was only one way—to make another nightgown exactly like it, before saturday came, and brought the laundry-woman and her inventory to the house.

“i was afraid to put it off till next day (the friday); being in doubt lest some accident might happen in the interval. i determined to make the new nightgown on that same day (the thursday), while i could count, if i played my cards properly, on having my time to myself. the first thing to do (after locking up your nightgown in my drawer) was to go back to your bedroom—not so much to put it to rights (penelope would have done that for me, if i had asked her) as to find out whether you had smeared off any of the paint-stain from your nightgown, on the bed, or on any piece of furniture in the room.

“i examined everything narrowly, and at last, i found a few streaks of the paint on the inside of your dressing-gown—not the linen dressing-gown you usually wore in that summer season, but a flannel dressing-gown which you had with you also. i suppose you felt chilly after walking to and fro in nothing but your nightdress, and put on the warmest thing you could find. at any rate, there were the stains, just visible, on the inside of the dressing-gown. i easily got rid of these by scraping away the stuff of the flannel. this done, the only proof left against you was the proof locked up in my drawer.

“i had just finished your room when i was sent for to be questioned by mr. seegrave, along with the rest of the servants. next came the examination of all our boxes. and then followed the most extraordinary event of the day—to me—since i had found the paint on your nightgown. this event came out of the second questioning of penelope betteredge by superintendent seegrave.

“penelope returned to us quite beside herself with rage at the manner in which mr. seegrave had treated her. he had hinted, beyond the possibility of mistaking him, that he suspected her of being the thief. we were all equally astonished at hearing this, and we all asked, why?

“‘because the diamond was in miss rachel’s sitting-room,” penelope answered. “and because i was the last person in the sitting-room at night!”

“almost before the words had left her lips, i remembered that another person had been in the sitting-room later than penelope. that person was yourself. my head whirled round, and my thoughts were in dreadful confusion. in the midst of it all, something in my mind whispered to me that the smear on your nightgown might have a meaning entirely different to the meaning which i had given to it up to that time. ‘if the last person who was in the room is the person to be suspected,’ i thought to myself, ‘the thief is not penelope, but mr. franklin blake!’

“in the case of any other gentleman, i believe i should have been ashamed of suspecting him of theft, almost as soon as the suspicion had passed through my mind.

“but the bare thought that you had let yourself down to my level, and that i, in possessing myself of your nightgown, had also possessed myself of the means of shielding you from being discovered, and disgraced for life—i say, sir, the bare thought of this seemed to open such a chance before me of winning your good will, that i passed blindfold, as one may say, from suspecting to believing. i made up my mind, on the spot, that you had shown yourself the busiest of anybody in fetching the police, as a blind to deceive us all; and that the hand which had taken miss rachel’s jewel could by no possibility be any other hand than yours.

“the excitement of this new discovery of mine must, i think, have turned my head for a while. i felt such a devouring eagerness to see you—to try you with a word or two about the diamond, and to make you look at me, and speak to me, in that way—that i put my hair tidy, and made myself as nice as i could, and went to you boldly in the library where i knew you were writing.

“you had left one of your rings upstairs, which made as good an excuse for my intrusion as i could have desired. but, oh, sir! if you have ever loved, you will understand how it was that all my courage cooled, when i walked into the room, and found myself in your presence. and then, you looked up at me so coldly, and you thanked me for finding your ring in such an indifferent manner, that my knees trembled under me, and i felt as if i should drop on the floor at your feet. when you had thanked me, you looked back, if you remember, at your writing. i was so mortified at being treated in this way, that i plucked up spirit enough to speak. i said, ‘this is a strange thing about the diamond, sir.’ and you looked up again, and said, ‘yes, it is!’ you spoke civilly (i can’t deny that); but still you kept a distance—a cruel distance between us. believing, as i did, that you had got the lost diamond hidden about you, while you were speaking, your coolness so provoked me that i got bold enough, in the heat of the moment, to give you a hint. i said, ‘they will never find the diamond, sir, will they? no! nor the person who took it—i’ll answer for that.’ i nodded, and smiled at you, as much as to say, ‘i know!’ this time, you looked up at me with something like interest in your eyes; and i felt that a few more words on your side and mine might bring out the truth. just at that moment, mr. betteredge spoilt it all by coming to the door. i knew his footstep, and i also knew that it was against his rules for me to be in the library at that time of day—let alone being there along with you. i had only just time to get out of my own accord, before he could come in and tell me to go. i was angry and disappointed; but i was not entirely without hope for all that. the ice, you see, was broken between us—and i thought i would take care, on the next occasion, that mr. betteredge was out of the way.

“when i got back to the servants’ hall, the bell was going for our dinner. afternoon already! and the materials for making the new nightgown were still to be got! there was but one chance of getting them. i shammed ill at dinner; and so secured the whole of the interval from then till tea-time to my own use.

“what i was about, while the household believed me to be lying down in my own room; and how i spent the night, after shamming ill again at tea-time, and having been sent up to bed, there is no need to tell you. sergeant cuff discovered that much, if he discovered nothing more. and i can guess how. i was detected (though i kept my veil down) in the draper’s shop at frizinghall. there was a glass in front of me, at the counter where i was buying the longcloth; and—in that glass—i saw one of the shopmen point to my shoulder and whisper to another. at night again, when i was secretly at work, locked into my room, i heard the breathing of the women servants who suspected me, outside my door.

“it didn’t matter then; it doesn’t matter now. on the friday morning, hours before sergeant cuff entered the house, there was the new nightgown—to make up your number in place of the nightgown that i had got—made, wrung out, dried, ironed, marked, and folded as the laundry woman folded all the others, safe in your drawer. there was no fear (if the linen in the house was examined) of the newness of the nightgown betraying me. all your underclothing had been renewed, when you came to our house—i suppose on your return home from foreign parts.

“the next thing was the arrival of sergeant cuff; and the next great surprise was the announcement of what he thought about the smear on the door.

“i had believed you to be guilty (as i have owned), more because i wanted you to be guilty than for any other reason. and now, the sergeant had come round by a totally different way to the same conclusion (respecting the nightgown) as mine! and i had got the dress that was the only proof against you! and not a living creature knew it—yourself included! i am afraid to tell you how i felt when i called these things to mind—you would hate my memory for ever afterwards.”

at that place, betteredge looked up from the letter.

“not a glimmer of light so far, mr. franklin,” said the old man, taking off his heavy tortoiseshell spectacles, and pushing rosanna spearman’s confession a little away from him. “have you come to any conclusion, sir, in your own mind, while i have been reading?”

“finish the letter first, betteredge; there may be something to enlighten us at the end of it. i shall have a word or two to say to you after that.”

“very good, sir. i’ll just rest my eyes, and then i’ll go on again. in the meantime, mr. franklin—i don’t want to hurry you—but would you mind telling me, in one word, whether you see your way out of this dreadful mess yet?”

“i see my way back to london,” i said, “to consult mr. bruff. if he can’t help me——”

“yes, sir?”

“and if the sergeant won’t leave his retirement at dorking——”

“he won’t, mr. franklin!”

“then, betteredge—as far as i can see now—i am at the end of my resources. after mr. bruff and the sergeant, i don’t know of a living creature who can be of the slightest use to me.”

as the words passed my lips, some person outside knocked at the door of the room.

betteredge looked surprised as well as annoyed by the interruption.

“come in,” he called out, irritably, “whoever you are!”

the door opened, and there entered to us, quietly, the most remarkable-looking man that i had ever seen. judging him by his figure and his movements, he was still young. judging him by his face, and comparing him with betteredge, he looked the elder of the two. his complexion was of a gipsy darkness; his fleshless cheeks had fallen into deep hollows, over which the bone projected like a penthouse. his nose presented the fine shape and modelling so often found among the ancient people of the east, so seldom visible among the newer races of the west. his forehead rose high and straight from the brow. his marks and wrinkles were innumerable. from this strange face, eyes, stranger still, of the softest brown—eyes dreamy and mournful, and deeply sunk in their orbits—looked out at you, and (in my case, at least) took your attention captive at their will. add to this a quantity of thick closely-curling hair, which, by some freak of nature, had lost its colour in the most startlingly partial and capricious manner. over the top of his head it was still of the deep black which was its natural colour. round the sides of his head—without the slightest gradation of grey to break the force of the extraordinary contrast—it had turned completely white. the line between the two colours preserved no sort of regularity. at one place, the white hair ran up into the black; at another, the black hair ran down into the white. i looked at the man with a curiosity which, i am ashamed to say, i found it quite impossible to control. his soft brown eyes looked back at me gently; and he met my involuntary rudeness in staring at him, with an apology which i was conscious that i had not deserved.

“i beg your pardon,” he said. “i had no idea that mr. betteredge was engaged.” he took a slip of paper from his pocket, and handed it to betteredge. “the list for next week,” he said. his eyes just rested on me again—and he left the room as quietly as he had entered it.

“who is that?” i asked.

“mr. candy’s assistant,” said betteredge. “by-the-bye, mr. franklin, you will be sorry to hear that the little doctor has never recovered that illness he caught, going home from the birthday dinner. he’s pretty well in health; but he lost his memory in the fever, and he has never recovered more than the wreck of it since. the work all falls on his assistant. not much of it now, except among the poor. they can’t help themselves, you know. they must put up with the man with the piebald hair, and the gipsy complexion—or they would get no doctoring at all.”

“you don’t seem to like him, betteredge?”

“nobody likes him, sir.”

“why is he so unpopular?”

“well, mr. franklin, his appearance is against him, to begin with. and then there’s a story that mr. candy took him with a very doubtful character. nobody knows who he is—and he hasn’t a friend in the place. how can you expect one to like him, after that?”

“quite impossible, of course! may i ask what he wanted with you, when he gave you that bit of paper?”

“only to bring me the weekly list of the sick people about here, sir, who stand in need of a little wine. my lady always had a regular distribution of good sound port and sherry among the infirm poor; and miss rachel wishes the custom to be kept up. times have changed! times have changed! i remember when mr. candy himself brought the list to my mistress. now it’s mr. candy’s assistant who brings the list to me. i’ll go on with the letter, if you will allow me, sir,” said betteredge, drawing rosanna spearman’s confession back to him. “it isn’t lively reading, i grant you. but, there! it keeps me from getting sour with thinking of the past.” he put on his spectacles, and wagged his head gloomily. “there’s a bottom of good sense, mr. franklin, in our conduct to our mothers, when they first start us on the journey of life. we are all of us more or less unwilling to be brought into the world. and we are all of us right.”

mr. candy’s assistant had produced too strong an impression on me to be immediately dismissed from my thoughts. i passed over the last unanswerable utterance of the betteredge philosophy; and returned to the subject of the man with the piebald hair.

“what is his name?” i asked.

“as ugly a name as need be,” betteredge answered gruffly. “ezra jennings.”