There she stopped.  She had become gradually, within the last few moments, whiter and whiter in the face.  The extraordinary blackness of her hair made this paleness, by contrast, so ghastly to look at, that we all thought she would faint, at the moment when she checked herself in the middle of her question.  Dear Mr. Godfrey made a second attempt to leave his chair.  My aunt entreated her to say no more.  I followed my aunt with a modest medicinal peace-offering, in the shape of a bottle of salts.  We none of us produced the slightest effect on her.  “Godfrey, stay where you are.  Mamma, there is not the least reason to be alarmed about me.  Clack, you’re dying to hear the end of it—­I won’t faint, expressly to oblige you.”

Those were the exact words she used—­taken down in my diary the moment I got home.  But, oh, don’t let us judge!  My Christian friends, don’t let us judge!

She turned once more to Mr. Godfrey.  With an obstinacy dreadful to see, she went back again to the place where she had checked herself, and completed her question in these words: 

“I spoke to you, a minute since, about what people were saying in certain quarters.  Tell me plainly, Godfrey, do they any of them say that Mr. Luker’s valuable gem is—­the Moonstone?”

As the name of the Indian Diamond passed her lips, I saw a change come over my admirable friend.  His complexion deepened.  He lost the genial suavity of manner which is one of his greatest charms.  A noble indignation inspired his reply.

“They do say it,” he answered.  “There are people who don’t hesitate to accuse Mr. Luker of telling a falsehood to serve some private interests of his own.  He has over and over again solemnly declared that, until this scandal assailed him, he had never even heard of the Moonstone.  And these vile people reply, without a shadow of proof to justify them, He has his reasons for concealment; we decline to believe him on his oath.  Shameful! shameful!”

Rachel looked at him very strangely—­I can’t well describe how—­while he was speaking.  When he had done, she said, “Considering that Mr. Luker is only a chance acquaintance of yours, you take up his cause, Godfrey, rather warmly.”

My gifted friend made her one of the most truly evangelical answers I ever heard in my life.

“I hope, Rachel, I take up the cause of all oppressed people rather warmly,” he said.

The tone in which those words were spoken might have melted a stone.  But, oh dear, what is the hardness of stone?  Nothing, compared to the hardness of the unregenerate human heart!  She sneered.  I blush to record it—­she sneered at him to his face.

“Keep your noble sentiments for your Ladies’ Committees, Godfrey.  I am certain that the scandal which has assailed Mr. Luker, has not spared You.”

Even my aunt’s torpor was roused by those words.

“My dear Rachel,” she remonstrated, “you have really no right to say that!”