“‘Did some of the ladies go up-stairs yesterday evening to see it?’ I asked.  ’I thought I heard Miss Rachel warning them to keep clear of the door.’

“‘None of the ladies made the smear,’ Penelope answered.  ’I left Miss Rachel in bed at twelve last night.  And I noticed the door, and there was nothing wrong with it then.’

“‘Oughtn’t you to mention this to Mr. Seegrave, Penelope?’

“’I wouldn’t say a word to help Mr. Seegrave for anything that could be offered to me!’

“She went to her work, and I went to mine.”

“My work, sir, was to make your bed, and to put your room tidy.  It was the happiest hour I had in the whole day.  I used to kiss the pillow on which your head had rested all night.  No matter who has done it since, you have never had your clothes folded as nicely as I folded them for you.  Of all the little knick-knacks in your dressing-case, there wasn’t one that had so much as a speck on it.  You never noticed it, any more than you noticed me.  I beg your pardon; I am forgetting myself.  I will make haste, and go on again.

“Well, I went in that morning to do my work in your room.  There was your nightgown tossed across the bed, just as you had thrown it off.  I took it up to fold it—­and I saw the stain of the paint from Miss Rachel’s door!

“I was so startled by the discovery that I ran out with the nightgown in my hand, and made for the back stairs, and locked myself into my own room, to look at it in a place where nobody could intrude and interrupt me.

“As soon as I got my breath again, I called to mind my talk with Penelope, and I said to myself, ’Here’s the proof that he was in Miss Rachel’s sitting-room between twelve last night, and three this morning!’

“I shall not tell you in plain words what was the first suspicion that crossed my mind, when I had made that discovery.  You would only be angry—­and, if you were angry, you might tear my letter up and read no more of it.

“Let it be enough, if you please, to say only this.  After thinking it over to the best of my ability, I made it out that the thing wasn’t likely, for a reason that I will tell you.  If you had been in Miss Rachel’s sitting-room, at that time of night, with Miss Rachel’s knowledge (and if you had been foolish enough to forget to take care of the wet door) she would have reminded you—­she would never have let you carry away such a witness against her, as the witness I was looking at now!  At the same time, I own I was not completely certain in my own mind that I had proved my own suspicion to be wrong.  You will not have forgotten that I have owned to hating Miss Rachel.  Try to think, if you can, that there was a little of that hatred in all this.  It ended in my determining to keep the nightgown, and to wait, and watch, and see what use I might make of it.  At that time, please to remember, not the ghost of an idea entered my head that you had stolen the Diamond.”