"It sounds strangely," I went on, "in my old-fashioned ears----"

"What sounds strangely?" she asked.

"To hear you speak of your future husband as if you were not quite sure

of the sincerity of his attachment. Are you conscious of any reason in

your own mind for doubting him?"

Her astonishing quickness of perception, detected a change in my voice,

or my manner, when I put that question, which warned her that I had been

speaking all along with some ulterior object in view. She stopped, and

taking her arm out of mine, looked me searchingly in the face.

"Mr. Bruff," she said, "you have something to tell me about Godfrey

Ablewhite. Tell it."

I knew her well enough to take her at her word. I told it.

She put her arm again into mine, and walked on with me slowly. I felt

her hand tightening its grasp mechanically on my arm, and I saw her

getting paler and paler as I went on--but, not a word passed her lips

while I was speaking. When I had done, she still kept silence. Her head

drooped a little, and she walked by my side, unconscious of my presence,

unconscious of everything about her; lost--buried, I might almost

say--in her own thoughts.

I made no attempt to disturb her. My experience of her disposition

warned me, on this, as on former occasions, to give her time.

The first instinct of girls in general, on being told of anything which

interests them, is to ask a multitude of questions, and then to run off,

and talk it all over with some favourite friend. Rachel Verinder's first

instinct, under similar circumstances, was to shut herself up in her own

mind, and to think it over by herself. This absolute self-dependence is

a great virtue in a man. In a woman it has a serious drawback of

morally separating her from the mass of her sex, and so exposing her

to misconstruction by the general opinion. I strongly suspect myself of

thinking as the rest of the world think in this matter--except in the

case of Rachel Verinder. The self-dependence in HER character, was one

of its virtues in my estimation; partly, no doubt, because I sincerely

admired and liked her; partly, because the view I took of her connexion

with the loss of the Moonstone was based on my own special knowledge of

her disposition. Badly as appearances might look, in the matter of the

Diamond--shocking as it undoubtedly was to know that she was associated

in any way with the mystery of an undiscovered theft--I was satisfied

nevertheless that she had done nothing unworthy of her, because I was

also satisfied that she had not stirred a step in the business, without

shutting herself up in her own mind, and thinking it over first.




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