The Moonstone

I gave her my card, having first written on it in pencil: "I have

something to say about the Moonstone. Let me hear from you as soon

as you get back." That done, there was nothing left but to submit to

circumstances, and return to London.

In the irritable condition of my mind, at the time of which I am now

writing, the abortive result of my journey to the Sergeant's cottage

simply aggravated the restless impulse in me to be doing something. On

the day of my return from Dorking, I determined that the next morning

should find me bent on a new effort at forcing my way, through all

obstacles, from the darkness to the light.

What form was my next experiment to take?

If the excellent Betteredge had been present while I was considering

that question, and if he had been let into the secret of my thoughts, he

would, no doubt, have declared that the German side of me was, on this

occasion, my uppermost side. To speak seriously, it is perhaps possible

that my German training was in some degree responsible for the labyrinth

of useless speculations in which I now involved myself. For the greater

part of the night, I sat smoking, and building up theories, one more

profoundly improbable than another. When I did get to sleep, my

waking fancies pursued me in dreams. I rose the next morning, with

Objective-Subjective and Subjective-Objective inextricably entangled

together in my mind; and I began the day which was to witness my next

effort at practical action of some kind, by doubting whether I had any

sort of right (on purely philosophical grounds) to consider any sort of

thing (the Diamond included) as existing at all.

How long I might have remained lost in the mist of my own metaphysics,

if I had been left to extricate myself, it is impossible for me to say.

As the event proved, accident came to my rescue, and happily delivered

me. I happened to wear, that morning, the same coat which I had worn on

the day of my interview with Rachel. Searching for something else in one

of the pockets, I came upon a crumpled piece of paper, and, taking it

out, found Betteredge's forgotten letter in my hand.

It seemed hard on my good old friend to leave him without a reply. I

went to my writing-table, and read his letter again.

A letter which has nothing of the slightest importance in it, is

not always an easy letter to answer. Betteredge's present effort at

corresponding with me came within this category. Mr. Candy's assistant,

otherwise Ezra Jennings, had told his master that he had seen me; and

Mr. Candy, in his turn, wanted to see me and say something to me, when

I was next in the neighbourhood of Frizinghall. What was to be said in

answer to that, which would be worth the paper it was written on? I sat

idly drawing likenesses from memory of Mr. Candy's remarkable-looking

assistant, on the sheet of paper which I had vowed to dedicate

to Betteredge--until it suddenly occurred to me that here was the

irrepressible Ezra Jennings getting in my way again! I threw a dozen

portraits, at least, of the man with the piebald hair (the hair in every

case, remarkably like), into the waste-paper basket--and then and

there, wrote my answer to Betteredge. It was a perfectly commonplace

letter--but it had one excellent effect on me. The effort of writing

a few sentences, in plain English, completely cleared my mind of the

cloudy nonsense which had filled it since the previous day.