The Moonstone

Crossing the hall, about half an hour afterwards, I was brought to a

sudden standstill by an outbreak of screams from the small drawing-room.

I can't say I was at all alarmed; for I recognised in the screams

the favourite large O of the Miss Ablewhites. However, I went in (on

pretence of asking for instructions about the dinner) to discover

whether anything serious had really happened.

There stood Miss Rachel at the table, like a person fascinated, with

the Colonel's unlucky Diamond in her hand. There, on either side of

her, knelt the two Bouncers, devouring the jewel with their eyes, and

screaming with ecstasy every time it flashed on them in a new light.

There, at the opposite side of the table, stood Mr. Godfrey, clapping

his hands like a large child, and singing out softly, "Exquisite!

exquisite!" There sat Mr. Franklin in a chair by the book-case, tugging

at his beard, and looking anxiously towards the window. And there, at

the window, stood the object he was contemplating--my lady, having the

extract from the Colonel's Will in her hand, and keeping her back turned

on the whole of the company.

She faced me, when I asked for my instructions; and I saw the family

frown gathering over her eyes, and the family temper twitching at the

corners of her mouth.

"Come to my room in half an hour," she answered. "I shall have something

to say to you then."

With those words she went out. It was plain enough that she was posed

by the same difficulty which had posed Mr. Franklin and me in our

conference at the Shivering Sand. Was the legacy of the Moonstone a

proof that she had treated her brother with cruel injustice? or was it

a proof that he was worse than the worst she had ever thought of him?

Serious questions those for my lady to determine, while her daughter,

innocent of all knowledge of the Colonel's character, stood there with

the Colonel's birthday gift in her hand.

Before I could leave the room in my turn, Miss Rachel, always

considerate to the old servant who had been in the house when she was

born, stopped me. "Look, Gabriel!" she said, and flashed the jewel

before my eyes in a ray of sunlight that poured through the window.

Lord bless us! it WAS a Diamond! As large, or nearly, as a plover's egg!

The light that streamed from it was like the light of the harvest moon.

When you looked down into the stone, you looked into a yellow deep

that drew your eyes into it so that they saw nothing else. It seemed

unfathomable; this jewel, that you could hold between your finger and

thumb, seemed unfathomable as the heavens themselves. We set it in the

sun, and then shut the light out of the room, and it shone awfully out

of the depths of its own brightness, with a moony gleam, in the dark. No

wonder Miss Rachel was fascinated: no wonder her cousins screamed. The

Diamond laid such a hold on ME that I burst out with as large an "O" as

the Bouncers themselves. The only one of us who kept his senses was Mr.

Godfrey. He put an arm round each of his sister's waists, and, looking

compassionately backwards and forwards between the Diamond and me, said,

"Carbon Betteredge! mere carbon, my good friend, after all!"