"You are to understand that, Mr. Ablewhite, if you please."

"I am also to take it as a matter of fact that the proposal to withdraw
from the engagement came, in the first instance, from YOU?"

"It came, in the first instance, from me. And it met, as I have told
you, with your son's consent and approval."

The thermometer went up to the top of the register. I mean, the pink
changed suddenly to scarlet.

"My son is a mean-spirited hound!" cried this furious old worldling.
"In justice to myself as his father--not in justice to HIM--I beg to
ask you, Miss Verinder, what complaint you have to make of Mr. Godfrey
Ablewhite?"

Here Mr. Bruff interfered for the first time.

"You are not bound to answer that question," he said to Rachel.

Old Mr. Ablewhite fastened on him instantly.

"Don't forget, sir," he said, "that you are a self-invited guest here.
Your interference would have come with a better grace if you had waited
until it was asked for."

Mr. Bruff took no notice. The smooth varnish on HIS wicked old face
never cracked. Rachel thanked him for the advice he had given to her,
and then turned to old Mr. Ablewhite--preserving her composure in a
manner which (having regard to her age and her sex) was simply awful to
see.

"Your son put the same question to me which you have just asked," she
said. "I had only one answer for him, and I have only one answer for
you. I proposed that we should release each other, because reflection
had convinced me that I should best consult his welfare and mine by
retracting a rash promise, and leaving him free to make his choice
elsewhere."

"What has my son done?" persisted Mr. Ablewhite. "I have a right to know
that. What has my son done?"

She persisted just as obstinately on her side.

"You have had the only explanation which I think it necessary to give to
you, or to him," she answered.

"In plain English, it's your sovereign will and pleasure, Miss Verinder,
to jilt my son?"

Rachel was silent for a moment. Sitting close behind her, I heard
her sigh. Mr. Bruff took her hand, and gave it a little squeeze. She
recovered herself, and answered Mr. Ablewhite as boldly as ever.

"I have exposed myself to worse misconstruction than that," she said.
"And I have borne it patiently. The time has gone by, when you could
mortify me by calling me a jilt."

She spoke with a bitterness of tone which satisfied me that the scandal
of the Moonstone had been in some way recalled to