thoughts which the
Shivering Sand put into my head. Those thoughts came back to me now. I
wondered in myself which it would be harder to do, if things went on in
this manner--to bear Mr. Franklin Blake's indifference to me, or to jump
into the quicksand and end it for ever in that way?

"It's useless to ask me to account for my own conduct, at this time. I
try--and I can't understand it myself.

"Why didn't I stop you, when you avoided me in that cruel manner? Why
didn't I call out, 'Mr. Franklin, I have got something to say to you;
it concerns yourself, and you must, and shall, hear it?' You were at
my mercy--I had got the whip-hand of you, as they say. And better than
that, I had the means (if I could only make you trust me) of being
useful to you in the future. Of course, I never supposed that you--a
gentleman--had stolen the Diamond for the mere pleasure of stealing it.
No. Penelope had heard Miss Rachel, and I had heard Mr. Betteredge, talk
about your extravagance and your debts. It was plain enough to me that
you had taken the Diamond to sell it, or pledge it, and so to get the
money of which you stood in need. Well! I could have told you of a man
in London who would have advanced a good large sum on the jewel, and who
would have asked no awkward questions about it either.

"Why didn't I speak to you! why didn't I speak to you!

"I wonder whether the risks and difficulties of keeping the nightgown
were as much as I could manage, without having other risks and
difficulties added to them? This might have been the case with some
women--but how could it be the case with me? In the days when I was
a thief, I had run fifty times greater risks, and found my way out of
difficulties to which THIS difficulty was mere child's play. I had been
apprenticed, as you may say, to frauds and deceptions--some of them on
such a grand scale, and managed so cleverly, that they became famous,
and appeared in the newspapers. Was such a little thing as the keeping
of the nightgown likely to weigh on my spirits, and to set my heart
sinking within me, at the time when I ought to have spoken to you? What
nonsense to ask the question! The thing couldn't be.

"Where is the use of my dwelling in this way on my own folly? The plain
truth is plain enough, surely? Behind your back, I loved you with all
my heart and soul. Before your face--there's no denying it--I was
frightened of you; frightened of making you angry with me; frightened
of wha