"It sounds strangely," I went on, "in my old-fashioned ears----"
"What sounds strangely?" she asked.
"To hear you speak of your future husband as if you were not quite sure
of the sincerity of his attachment. Are you conscious of any reason in
your own mind for doubting him?"
Her astonishing quickness of perception, detected a change in my voice,
or my manner, when I put that question, which warned her that I had been
speaking all along with some ulterior object in view. She stopped, and
taking her arm out of mine, looked me searchingly in the face.
"Mr. Bruff," she said, "you have something to tell me about Godfrey
Ablewhite. Tell it."
I knew her well enough to take her at her word. I told it.
She put her arm again into mine, and walked on with me slowly. I felt
her hand tightening its grasp mechanically on my arm, and I saw her
getting paler and paler as I went on--but, not a word passed her lips
while I was speaking. When I had done, she still kept silence. Her head
drooped a little, and she walked by my side, unconscious of my presence,
unconscious of everything about her; lost--buried, I might almost
say--in her own thoughts.
I made no attempt to disturb her. My experience of her disposition
warned me, on this, as on former occasions, to give her time.
The first instinct of girls in general, on being told of anything which
interests them, is to ask a multitude of questions, and then to run off,
and talk it all over with some favourite friend. Rachel Verinder's first
instinct, under similar circumstances, was to shut herself up in her own
mind, and to think it over by herself. This absolute self-dependence is
a great virtue in a man. In a woman it has a serious drawback of
morally separating her from the mass of her sex, and so exposing her
to misconstruction by the general opinion. I strongly suspect myself of
thinking as the rest of the world think in this matter--except in the
case of Rachel Verinder. The self-dependence in HER character, was one
of its virtues in my estimation; partly, no doubt, because I sincerely
admired and liked her; partly, because the view I took of her connexion
with the loss of the Moonstone was based on my own special knowledge of
her disposition. Badly as appearances might look, in the matter of the
Diamond--shocking as it undoubtedly was to know that she was associated
in any way with the mystery of an undiscovered theft--I was satisfied
nevertheless that she had done nothing unworthy of her, because I was
also satisfied that she had not stirred a step in the business, without
shutting herself up in her own mind, and thinking it over first.