ave helped me to bring them out!" He was so eloquent in
drawing the picture of his own neglected merits, and so pathetic in
lamenting over it when it was done, that I felt quite at my wits' end
how to console him, when it suddenly occurred to me that here was a case
for the wholesome application of a bit of ROBINSON CRUSOE. I hobbled out
to my own room, and hobbled back with that immortal book. Nobody in the
library! The map of Modern Italy stared at ME; and I stared at the map
of Modern Italy.

I tried the drawing-room. There was his handkerchief on the floor, to
prove that he had drifted in. And there was the empty room to prove that
he had drifted out again.

I tried the dining-room, and discovered Samuel with a biscuit and a
glass of sherry, silently investigating the empty air. A minute since,
Mr. Franklin had rung furiously for a little light refreshment. On its
production, in a violent hurry, by Samuel, Mr. Franklin had vanished
before the bell downstairs had quite done ringing with the pull he had
given to it.

I tried the morning-room, and found him at last. There he was at the
window, drawing hieroglyphics with his finger in the damp on the glass.

"Your sherry is waiting for you, sir," I said to him. I might as well
have addressed myself to one of the four walls of the room; he was down
in the bottomless deep of his own meditations, past all pulling up.
"How do YOU explain Rachel's conduct, Betteredge?" was the only answer
I received. Not being ready with the needful reply, I produced ROBINSON
CRUSOE, in which I am firmly persuaded some explanation might have been
found, if we had only searched long enough for it. Mr. Franklin shut up
ROBINSON CRUSOE, and floundered into his German-English gibberish on the
spot. "Why not look into it?" he said, as if I had personally objected
to looking into it. "Why the devil lose your patience, Betteredge, when
patience is all that's wanted to arrive at the truth? Don't interrupt
me. Rachel's conduct is perfectly intelligible, if you will only do her
the common justice to take the Objective view first, and the Subjective
view next, and the Objective-Subjective view to wind up with. What do we
know? We know that the loss of the Moonstone, on Thursday morning last,
threw her into a state of nervous excitement, from which she has not
recovered yet. Do you mean to deny the Objective view, so far? Very
well, then--don't interrupt me. Now, being in a state of nervous
exciteme