`Mr.Seegrave began, as you may remember, by setting a guard on the women's bedrooms; and the women all followed him upstairs in a rage, to know what he meant by the insult he had put on them.I went with the rest, because if I had done anything different from the rest, Mr.Seegrave was the sort of man who would have suspected me directly.We found him in Miss Rachel's room.He told us he wouldn't have a lot of women there; and he pointed to the smear on the painted door, and said some of our petticoats had done the mischief, and sent us all downstairs again.
`After leaving Miss Rachel's room, I stopped a moment on one of the landings, by myself, to see if I had got the paint-stain by any chance on my gown.Penelope Betteredge (the only one of the women with whom I was on friendly terms) passed, and noticed what I was about.
`"You needn't trouble yourself, Rosanna," she said."The paint on Miss Rachel's door has been dry for hours.If Mr.See-grave hadn't set a watch on our bedrooms, I might have told him as much.I don't know what you think-- I was never so insulted before in my life!"`Penelope was a hot-tempered girl.I quieted her, and brought her back to what she had said about the paint on the door having been dry for hours.
`"How do you know that?" I asked.
`"I was with Miss Rachel, and Mr.Franklin, all yesterday morning,"Penelope said, "mixing the colours, while they finished the door.I heard Miss Rachel ask whether the door would be dry that evening, in time for the birthday company to see it.And Mr.Franklin shook his head, and said it wouldn't be dry in less than twelve hours.It was long past luncheon-time--it was three o'clock before they had done.What does your arithmetic say, Rosanna? Mine says the door was dry by three this morning."`"Did some of the ladies go upstairs yesterday evening to see it?" Iasked."I thought I heard Miss Rachel warning them to keep clear of the door."`"None of the ladies made the smear," Penelope answered."I left Miss Rachel in bed at twelve last night.And I noticed the door, and there was nothing wrong with it then."`"Oughtn't you to mention this to Mr.Seegrave, Penelope?"`"I wouldn't say a word to help Mr.Seegrave for anything that could be offered to me!"`She went to her work, and I went to mine.
`My work, sir, was to make your bed, and to put your room tidy.It was the happiest hour I had in the whole day.I used to kiss the pillow on which your head had rested all night.No matter who has done it since, you have never had your clothes folded as nicely as I folded them for you.
Of all the little knick-knacks in your dressing-case, there wasn't one that had so much as a speak on it.You never noticed it, any more than you noticed me.I beg your pardon; I am forgetting myself.I will make haste, and go on again.
`Well, I went in that morning to do my work in your room.There was your nightgown tossed across the bed, just as you had thrown it off.Itook it up to fold it--and I saw the stain of the paint from Miss Rachel's door!
`I was so startled by the discovery that I ran out, with the nightgown in my hand, and made for the back stairs, and locked myself into my own room, to look at it in a place where nobody could intrude and interrupt me.
`As soon as I got my breath again, I called to mind my talk with Penelope, and I said to myself, "Here's the proof that he was in Miss Rachel's sitting-room between twelve last night, and three this morning!"`I shall not tell you in plain words what was the first suspicion that crossed my mind, when I had made that discovery.You would only be angry--and, if you were angry, you might tear my letter up and read no more of it.
`Let it be enough, if you please, to say only this.After thinking it over to the best of my ability, I made it out that the thing wasn't likely, for a reason that I will tell you.If you had been in Miss Rachel's sitting-room, at that time of night, with Miss Rachel's knowledge (and if you had been foolish enough to forget to take care of the wet door) she would have reminded you-- she would never have let you carry away such a witness against her, as the witness I was looking at now! At the same time, I own I was not completely certain in my own mind that I had proved my own suspicion to be wrong.You will not have forgotten that I have owned to hating Miss Rachel.Try to think, if you can, that there was a little of that hatred in all this.It ended in my determining to keep the nightgown, and to wait, and watch, and see what use I might make of it.At that time, please to remember, not the ghost of an idea entered my head that you had stolen the Diamond.'
There, I broke off in the reading of the letter for the second time.
I had read those portions of the miserable woman's confession which related to myself, with unaffected surprise, and, I can honestly add, with sincere distress.I had regretted, truly regretted, the aspersion which I had thoughtlessly cast on her memory, before I had seen a line of her letter.But when I had advanced as far as the passage which is quoted above, I own I felt my mind growing bitterer and bitterer against Rosanna Spearman as I went on.`Read the rest for yourself,' I said, handing the letter to Betteredge across the table.`If there is anything in it that I must look at, you can tell me as you go on.'
`I understand you, Mr.Franklin,' he answered.`It's natural, sir, in you.And, God help us all!' he added in a lower tone, `it's no less natural in her.'
I proceed to copy the continuation of the letter from the original, in my own possession:
`Having determined to keep the nightgown, and to see what use my love, or my revenge (I hardly know which) could turn it to in the future, the next thing to discover was how to keep it without the risk of being found out.
`There was only one way--to make another nightgown exactly like it, before Saturday came, and brought the laundry-woman and her inventory to the house.