‘You shall go directly, Sir Counsellor, after meeting my other condition; which is, that you place in my hands Lady Lorna’s diamond necklace.’

‘Ah, how often I have wished,’ said the old man with a heavy sigh, ‘that it might yet be in my power to ease my mind in that respect, and to do a thoroughly good deed by lawful restitution.’

‘Then try to have it in your power, sir. Surely, with my encouragement, you might summon resolution.’

‘Alas, John, the resolution has been ready long ago. But the thing is not in my possession. Carver, my son, who slew your father, upon him you will find the necklace. What are jewels to me, young man, at my time of life? Baubles and trash,—I detest them, from the sins they have led me to answer for. When you come to my age, good Sir John, you will scorn all jewels, and care only for a pure and bright conscience. Ah! ah! Let me go. I have made my peace with God.’

He looked so hoary, and so silvery, and serene in the moonlight, that verily I must have believed him, if he had not drawn in his breast. But I happened to have noticed that when an honest man gives vent to noble and great sentiments, he spreads his breast, and throws it out, as if his heart were swelling; whereas I had seen this old gentleman draw in his breast more than once, as if it happened to contain better goods than sentiment.

‘Will you applaud me, kind sir,’ I said, keeping him very tight, all the while, ‘if I place it in your power to ratify your peace with God? The pledge is upon your heart, no doubt, for there it lies at this moment.’

With these words, and some apology for having recourse to strong measures, I thrust my hand inside his waistcoat, and drew forth Lorna’s necklace, purely sparkling in the moonlight, like the dancing of new stars. The old man made a stab at me, with a knife which I had not espied; but the vicious onset failed; and then he knelt, and clasped his hands.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, John, my son, rob me not in that manner. They belong to me; and I love them so; I would give almost my life for them. There is one jewel I can look at for hours, and see all the lights of heaven in it; which I never shall see elsewhere. All my wretched, wicked life—oh, John, I am a sad hypocrite—but give me back my jewels. Or else kill me here; I am a babe in your hands; but I must have back my jewels.’

As his beautiful white hair fell away from his noble forehead, like a silver wreath of glory, and his powerful face, for once, was moved with real emotion, I was so amazed and overcome by the grand contradictions of nature, that verily I was on the point of giving him back the necklace. But honesty, which is said to be the first instinct of all the Ridds (though I myself never found it so), happened here to occur to me, and so I said, without more haste than might be expected,—

‘Sir Counsellor, I cannot give you what does not belong to me. But if you will show me that particular diamond which is heaven to you, I will take upon myself the risk and the folly of cutting it out for you. And with that you must go contented; and I beseech you not to starve with that jewel upon your lips.’

Seeing no hope of better terms, he showed me his pet love of a jewel; and I thought of what Lorna was to me, as I cut it out (with the hinge of my knife severing the snakes of gold) and placed it in his careful hand. Another moment, and he was gone, and away through Gwenny’s postern; and God knows what became of him.

Now as to Carver, the thing was this—so far as I could ascertain from the valiant miners, no two of whom told the same story, any more than one of them told it twice. The band of Doones which sallied forth for the robbery of the pretended convoy was met by Simon Carfax, according to arrangement, at the ruined house called The Warren, in that part of Bagworthy Forest where the river Exe (as yet a very small stream) runs through it. The Warren, as all our people know, had belonged to a fine old gentleman, whom every one called ‘The Squire,’ who had retreated from active life to pass the rest of his days in