"The Story of our Lives from Year to Year."-SHAKESPEARE. ALL THE YEAR ROUND. A Weekly Journal. CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED HOUSEHOLD WORDS. VOLUME XX. FROM JUNE 13 TO NOVEMBER 28, 1868. Including No. 477 to No. 501. LONDON: PUBLISHED AT No. 26, WELLINGTON STREET; 1868. ALL THE YEAR ROUND. A WEEKLY JOURNAL. CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED HOUSEHOLD WORDS. THE MOONSTONE. BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE WOMAN IN WHITE," &c. &c. SECOND PERIOD. THE DISCOVERY OF THE THIRD NARRATIVE. THE NARRATIVE OF FRANKLIN BLAKE. HAVING told me the name of Mr. Candy's assistant, Betteredge appeared to think that we had wasted enough of our time on an insignificant subject. He resumed the perusal of Rosanna Spearman's letter. [PRICE 2d. dresses. There was no place in my room— there was no place in the house-which I could feel satisfied would be safe from him. How to hide the nightgown so that not even the Sergeant could find it? and how to do that without losing one moment of precious time?— these were not easy questions to answer. My uncertainties ended in my taking a way that may make you laugh. I undressed, and put the nightgown on me. You had worn it-and I had another little moment of pleasure in wearing it after you. "The next news that reached us in the servants' hall showed that I had not made sure of the nightgown a moment too soon. Sergeant Cuff wanted to see the washingbook. On my side, I sat at the window, waiting "I found it, and took it to him in my lady's until he had done. Little by little, the im- sitting-room. The Sergeant and I had come pression produced on me by Ezra Jennings-it across each other more than once in former seemed perfectly unaccountable, in such a situa- days. I was certain he would know me again tion as mine, that any human being should have and I was not certain of what he might do produced an impression on me at all!-faded from my mind. My thoughts flowed back into their former channel. Once more, I forced myself to look my own incredible position resolutely in the face. Once more, I reviewed in my own mind the course which I had at last summoned composure enough to plan out for the future. Το go back to London that day; to put the whole case before Mr. Bruff; and, last and most important, to obtain (no matter by what means or at what sacrifice) a personal interview with Rachel-this was my plan of action, so far as I was capable of forming it at the time. There was more than an hour still to spare before the train started. And there was the bare chance that Betteredge might discover something in the unread portion of Rosanna Spearman's letter, which it might be useful for me to know before I left the house in which the Diamond had been lost. For that chance I was now waiting. The letter ended in these terms: "You have no need to be angry, Mr. Franklin, even if I did feel some little triumph at knowing that I held all your prospects in life in my own hands. Anxieties and fears soon came back to me. With the view Sergeant Cuff took of the loss of the Diamond, he would be sure to end in examining our linen and our VOL. XX. when he found me employed as servant in a house in which a valuable jewel had been lost. In this suspense, I felt it would be a relief to me to get the meeting between us over, and to know the worst of it at once. "He looked at me as if I was a stranger, when I handed him the washing-book; and he was very specially polite in thanking me for bringing it. I thought those were both bad signs. There was no knowing what he might say of me behind my back; there was no knowing how soon I might not find myself taken in custody on suspicion, and searched. It was then time for your return from seeing Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite off by the railway; and I went to your favourite walk in the shrubbery, to try for another chance of speaking to youthe last chance, for all I knew to the contrary, that I might have. "You never appeared; and, what was worse still, Mr. Betteredge and Sergeant Cuff passed by the place where I was hiding-and the Sergeant saw me "I had no choice, after that, but to return to my proper place and my proper work, before more disasters happened to me. Just as I was going to step across the path, you came back from the railway. You were making straight for the shrubbery, when you saw me-I am certain, sir, you saw me—and you turned away 477 |