Mr. Franklin declined the brandy-and-water, and went up-stairs with Mr. Godfrey, their rooms being next door to each other.  On the landing, however, either his cousin persuaded him, or he veered about and changed his mind as usual.  “Perhaps I may want it in the night,” he called down to me.  “Send up some brandy-and-water into my room.”

I sent up Samuel with the brandy-and-water; and then went out and unbuckled the dogs’ collars.  They both lost their heads with astonishment on being set loose at that time of night, and jumped upon me like a couple of puppies!  However, the rain soon cooled them down again:  they lapped a drop of water each, and crept back into their kennels.  As I went into the house I noticed signs in the sky which betokened a break in the weather for the better.  For the present, it still poured heavily, and the ground was in a perfect sop.

Samuel and I went all over the house, and shut up as usual.  I examined everything myself, and trusted nothing to my deputy on this occasion.  All was safe and fast when I rested my old bones in bed, between midnight and one in the morning.

The worries of the day had been a little too much for me, I suppose.  At any rate, I had a touch of Mr. Franklin’s malady that night.  It was sunrise before I fell off at last into a sleep.  All the time I lay awake the house was as quiet as the grave.  Not a sound stirred but the splash of the rain, and the sighing of the wind among the trees as a breeze sprang up with the morning.

About half-past seven I woke, and opened my window on a fine sunshiny day.  The clock had struck eight, and I was just going out to chain up the dogs again, when I heard a sudden whisking of petticoats on the stairs behind me.

I turned about, and there was Penelope flying down after me like mad.  “Father!” she screamed, “come up-stairs, for God’s sake!  The diamond is gone!” “Are you out of your mind?” I asked her.

“Gone!” says Penelope.  “Gone, nobody knows how!  Come up and see.”

She dragged me after her into our young lady’s sitting-room, which opened into her bedroom.  There, on the threshold of her bedroom door, stood Miss Rachel, almost as white in the face as the white dressing-gown that clothed her.  There also stood the two doors of the Indian cabinet, wide open.  One, of the drawers inside was pulled out as far as it would go.

“Look!” says Penelope.  “I myself saw Miss Rachel put the Diamond into that drawer last night.”  I went to the cabinet.  The drawer was empty.

“Is this true, miss?” I asked.

With a look that was not like herself, with a voice that was not like her own, Miss Rachel answered as my daughter had answered:  “The Diamond is gone!” Having said those words, she withdrew into her bedroom, and shut and locked the door.

Before we knew which way to turn next, my lady came in, hearing my voice in her daughter’s sitting-room, and wondering what had happened.  The news of the loss of the Diamond seemed to petrify her.  She went straight to Miss Rachel’s bedroom, and insisted on being admitted.  Miss Rachel let here in.