"You are a very good fellow in your way, Godfrey," she said--not taking the smallest notice, observe, of me, and still speaking to her cousin as if she was one young man addressing another. "But I am quite sure you are not great; I don't believe you possess any extraordinary courage; and I am firmly persuaded--if you ever had any modesty--that your lady-worshippers relieved you of that virtue a good many years since. You have some private reason for not talking of your adventure in Northumberland Street; and I mean to know it."
"My reason is the simplest imaginable, and the most easily acknowledged," he answered, still bearing with her. "I am tired of the subject."
"You are tired of the subject?
My dear Godfrey, I am going to make a remark."
"What is it?"
"You live a great deal too much in the society of women.
And you have contracted two very bad habits in consequence. You have learnt to talk nonsense seriously, and you have got into a way of telling fibs for the pleasure of telling them.
You can't go straight with your lady-worshippers.
I mean to make you go straight with me.
Come, and sit down.
I am brimful of downright questions; and I expect you to be brimful of downright answers."
She actually dragged him across the room to a chair by the window, where the light would fall on his face.
I deeply feel being obliged to report such language, and to describe such conduct.
But, hemmed in, as I am, between Mr. Franklin Blake's cheque on one side and my own sacred regard for truth on the other, what am I to do?
I looked at my aunt.
She sat unmoved; apparently in no way disposed to interfere.
I had never noticed this kind of torpor in her before.
It was, perhaps, the reaction after the trying time she had had in the country. Not a pleasant symptom to remark, be it what it might, at dear Lady Verinder's age, and with dear Lady Verinder's autumnal exuberance of figure.
In the meantime, Rachel had settled herself at the window with our amiable and forbearing--our too forbearing--Mr. Godfrey.
She began the string of questions with which she had threatened him, taking no more notice of her mother, or of myself, than if we had not been in the room.
"Have the police done anything, Godfrey?"
"Nothing whatever."
"It is certain, I suppose, that the three men who laid the trap for you were the same three men who afterwards laid the trap for Mr. Luker?"
"Humanly speaking, my dear Rachel, there can be no doubt of it."
"And not a trace of them has been discovered?"
"Not a trace."
"It is thought--is it not?--that these three men are the three Indians who came to our house in the country."
"Some people think so."
"Do you think so?"
"My dear Rachel, they blindfolded me before I could see their faces.
I know nothing whatever of the matter.
How can I offer an opinion on it?" Even the angelic gentleness of Mr. Godfrey was, you see, beginning to give way at last under the persecution inflicted on him. Whether unbridled curiosity, or ungovernable dread, dictated Miss Verinder's questions I do not presume to inquire. I only report that, on Mr. Godfrey's attempting to rise, after giving her the answer just described, she actually took him by the two shoulders, and pushed him back into his chair--Oh, don't say this was immodest! don't even hint that the recklessness of guilty terror could alone account for such conduct as I have described! We must not judge others. My Christian friends, indeed, indeed, indeed, we must not judge others!
She went on with her questions, unabashed. Earnest Biblical students will perhaps be reminded--as I was reminded--of the blinded children of the devil, who went on with their orgies, unabashed, in the time before the Flood.
"I want to know something about Mr. Luker, Godfrey."
"I am again unfortunate, Rachel.
No man knows less of Mr. Luker than I do."
"You never saw him before you and he met accidentally at the bank?"
"Never."
"You have seen him since?"
"Yes.
We have been examined together, as well as separately, to assist the police."
"Mr. Luker was robbed of a receipt which he had got from his banker's--was he not?
What was the receipt for?"
"For a valuable gem which he had placed in the safe keeping of the bank."
"That's what the newspapers say.
It may be enough for the general reader; but it is not enough for me.
The banker's receipt must have mentioned what the gem was?"
"The banker's receipt, Rachel--as I have heard it described--mentioned nothing of the kind.
A valuable gem, belonging to Mr. Luker; deposited by Mr. Luker; sealed with Mr. Luker's seal; and only to be given up on Mr. Luker's personal application. That was the form, and that is all I know about it."
She waited a moment, after he had said that. She looked at her mother, and sighed.