may want it in the night," he called down
to me. "Send up some brandy-and-water into my room."

I sent up Samuel with the brandy-and-water; and then went out
and unbuckled the dogs' collars. They both lost their heads with
astonishment on being set loose at that time of night, and jumped upon
me like a couple of puppies! However, the rain soon cooled them down
again: they lapped a drop of water each, and crept back into their
kennels. As I went into the house I noticed signs in the sky which
betokened a break in the weather for the better. For the present, it
still poured heavily, and the ground was in a perfect sop.

Samuel and I went all over the house, and shut up as usual. I examined
everything myself, and trusted nothing to my deputy on this occasion.
All was safe and fast when I rested my old bones in bed, between
midnight and one in the morning.

The worries of the day had been a little too much for me, I suppose.
At any rate, I had a touch of Mr. Franklin's malady that night. It was
sunrise before I fell off at last into a sleep. All the time I lay awake
the house was as quiet as the grave. Not a sound stirred but the splash
of the rain, and the sighing of the wind among the trees as a breeze
sprang up with the morning.

About half-past seven I woke, and opened my window on a fine sunshiny
day. The clock had struck eight, and I was just going out to chain up
the dogs again, when I heard a sudden whisking of petticoats on the
stairs behind me.

I turned about, and there was Penelope flying down after me like mad.
"Father!" she screamed, "come up-stairs, for God's sake! THE DIAMOND IS
GONE!" "Are you out of your mind?" I asked her.

"Gone!" says Penelope. "Gone, nobody knows how! Come up and see."

She dragged me after her into our young lady's sitting-room, which
opened into her bedroom. There, on the threshold of her bedroom door,
stood Miss Rachel, almost as white in the face as the white dressing-gown
that clothed her. There also stood the two doors of the Indian cabinet,
wide open. One, of the drawers inside was pulled out as far as it would
go.

"Look!" says Penelope. "I myself saw Miss Rachel put the Diamond into
that drawer last night." I went to the cabinet. The drawer was empty.

"Is this true, miss?" I asked.

With a look that was not like herself, with a voice that was not like
her own, Miss Rachel answered as my daughter had answered: "The Diamond
is gone!" Having said those words, she wit