“I mean no harm, mamma—­I mean good.  Have a moment’s patience with me, and you will see.”

She looked back at Mr. Godfrey, with what appeared to be a sudden pity for him.  She went the length—­the very unladylike length—­of taking him by the hand.

“I am certain,” she said, “that I have found out the true reason of your unwillingness to speak of this matter before my mother and before me.  An unlucky accident has associated you in people’s minds with Mr. Luker.  You have told me what scandal says of him.  What does scandal say of you?”

Even at the eleventh hour, dear Mr. Godfrey—­always ready to return good for evil—­tried to spare her.

“Don’t ask me!” he said.  “It’s better forgotten, Rachel—­it is, indeed.”

“I will hear it!” she cried out, fiercely, at the top of her voice.

“Tell her, Godfrey!” entreated my aunt.  “Nothing can do her such harm as your silence is doing now!”

Mr. Godfrey’s fine eyes filled with tears.  He cast one last appealing look at her—­and then he spoke the fatal words: 

“If you will have it, Rachel—­scandal says that the Moonstone is in pledge to Mr. Luker, and that I am the man who has pawned it.”

She started to her feet with a scream.  She looked backwards and forwards from Mr. Godfrey to my aunt, and from my aunt to Mr. Godfrey, in such a frantic manner that I really thought she had gone mad.

“Don’t speak to me!  Don’t touch me!” she exclaimed, shrinking back from all of us (I declare like some hunted animal!) into a corner of the room.  “This is my fault!  I must set it right.  I have sacrificed myself—­I had a right to do that, if I liked.  But to let an innocent man be ruined; to keep a secret which destroys his character for life—­Oh, good God, it’s too horrible!  I can’t bear it!”

My aunt half rose from her chair, then suddenly sat down again.  She called to me faintly, and pointed to a little phial in her work-box.

“Quick!” she whispered.  “Six drops, in water.  Don’t let Rachel see.”

Under other circumstances, I should have thought this strange.  There was no time now to think—­there was only time to give the medicine.  Dear Mr. Godfrey unconsciously assisted me in concealing what I was about from Rachel, by speaking composing words to her at the other end of the room.

“Indeed, indeed, you exaggerate,” I heard him say.  “My reputation stands too high to be destroyed by a miserable passing scandal like this.  It will be all forgotten in another week.  Let us never speak of it again.”  She was perfectly inaccessible, even to such generosity as this.  She went on from bad to worse.

“I must, and will, stop it,” she said.  “Mamma! hear what I say.  Miss Clack! hear what I say.  I know the hand that took the Moonstone.  I know—­” she laid a strong emphasis on the words; she stamped her foot in the rage that possessed her—­“I know that Godfrey Ablewhite is innocent.  Take me to the magistrate, Godfrey!  Take me to the magistrate, and I will swear it!”