More words followed these, providing if my lady was dead, or if Miss

Rachel was dead, at the time of the testator's decease, for the Diamond

being sent to Holland, in accordance with the sealed instructions

originally deposited with it. The proceeds of the sale were, in

that case, to be added to the money already left by the Will for the

professorship of chemistry at the university in the north.

I handed the paper back to Mr. Franklin, sorely troubled what to say to

him. Up to that moment, my own opinion had been (as you know) that the

Colonel had died as wickedly as he had lived. I don't say the copy

from his Will actually converted me from that opinion: I only say it

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staggered me.

"Well," says Mr. Franklin, "now you have read the Colonel's own

statement, what do you say? In bringing the Moonstone to my aunt's

house, am I serving his vengeance blindfold, or am I vindicating him in

the character of a penitent and Christian man?"

"It seems hard to say, sir," I answered, "that he died with a horrid

revenge in his heart, and a horrid lie on his lips. God alone knows the

truth. Don't ask me."

Mr. Franklin sat twisting and turning the extract from the Will in

his fingers, as if he expected to squeeze the truth out of it in that

manner. He altered quite remarkably, at the same time. From being brisk

and bright, he now became, most unaccountably, a slow, solemn, and

pondering young man.

"This question has two sides," he said. "An Objective side, and a

Subjective side. Which are we to take?"

He had had a German education as well as a French. One of the two had

been in undisturbed possession of him (as I supposed) up to this time.

And now (as well as I could make out) the other was taking its place. It

is one of my rules in life, never to notice what I don't understand. I

steered a middle course between the Objective side and the Subjective

side. In plain English I stared hard, and said nothing.

"Let's extract the inner meaning of this," says Mr. Franklin. "Why

did my uncle leave the Diamond to Rachel? Why didn't he leave it to my

aunt?"

"That's not beyond guessing, sir, at any rate," I said. "Colonel

Herncastle knew my lady well enough to know that she would have refused

to accept any legacy that came to her from HIM."

"How did he know that Rachel might not refuse to accept it, too?"

"Is there any young lady in existence, sir, who could resist the

temptation of accepting such a birthday present as The Moonstone?"

"That's the Subjective view," says Mr. Franklin. "It does you great

credit, Betteredge, to be able to take the Subjective view. But there's

another mystery about the Colonel's legacy which is not accounted for

yet. How are we to explain his only giving Rachel her birthday present

conditionally on her mother being alive?"




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