My first impulse was to consult the letter in my pocket--the letter

which I had found in the case.

As I raised my hand to take it out, I remembered that there was a

shorter way to discovery than this. The nightgown itself would reveal

the truth, for, in all probability, the nightgown was marked with its

owner's name.

I took it up from the sand, and looked for the mark.

I found the mark, and read--MY OWN NAME.

There were the familiar letters which told me that the nightgown

was mine. I looked up from them. There was the sun; there were the

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glittering waters of the bay; there was old Betteredge, advancing nearer

and nearer to me. I looked back again at the letters. My own name.

Plainly confronting me--my own name.

"If time, pains, and money can do it, I will lay my hand on the thief

who took the Moonstone."--I had left London, with those words on my

lips. I had penetrated the secret which the quicksand had kept from

every other living creature. And, on the unanswerable evidence of the

paint-stain, I had discovered Myself as the Thief.




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