-room, and saw you go in. You
left the door open. He looked through the crevice thus produced, between
the door and the post, before he ventured into the room himself.

In that position, he not only detected you in taking the Diamond out of
the drawer--he also detected Miss Verinder, silently watching you from
her bedroom, through her open door. His own eyes satisfied him that SHE
saw you take the Diamond, too.

Before you left the sitting-room again, you hesitated a little. Mr.
Godfrey took advantage of this hesitation to get back again to his
bedroom before you came out, and discovered him. He had barely got back,
before you got back too. You saw him (as he supposes) just as he was
passing through the door of communication. At any rate, you called to
him in a strange, drowsy voice.

He came back to you. You looked at him in a dull sleepy way. You put the
Diamond into his hand. You said to him, "Take it back, Godfrey, to your
father's bank. It's safe there--it's not safe here." You turned away
unsteadily, and put on your dressing-gown. You sat down in the large
arm-chair in your room. You said, "I can't take it back to the bank. My
head's like lead--and I can't feel my feet under me." Your head sank on
the back of the chair--you heaved a heavy sigh--and you fell asleep.

Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite went back, with the Diamond, into his own room.
His statement is, that he came to no conclusion, at that time--except
that he would wait, and see what happened in the morning.

When the morning came, your language and conduct showed that you were
absolutely ignorant of what you had said and done overnight. At the same
time, Miss Verinder's language and conduct showed that she was resolved
to say nothing (in mercy to you) on her side. If Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite
chose to keep the Diamond, he might do so with perfect impunity. The
Moonstone stood between him and ruin. He put the Moonstone into his
pocket.

V

This was the story told by your cousin (under pressure of necessity) to
Mr. Luker.

Mr. Luker believed the story to be, as to all main essentials, true--on
this ground, that Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite was too great a fool to have
invented it. Mr. Bruff and I agree with Mr. Luker, in considering this
test of the truth of the story to be a perfectly reliable one.

The next question, was the question of what Mr. Luker would do in the
matter of the Moonstone. He proposed the following terms, as the only
terms on which he w