The Moonstone - Page 364/404

He advanced to the middle of the room, with the candle still in his

hand: he looked about him--but he never looked back.

I saw the door of Miss Verinder's bedroom, standing ajar. She had put

out her light. She controlled herself nobly. The dim white outline of

her summer dress was all that I could see. Nobody who had not known it

beforehand would have suspected that there was a living creature in the

room. She kept back, in the dark: not a word, not a movement escaped

her.

It was now ten minutes past one. I heard, through the dead silence, the

soft drip of the rain and the tremulous passage of the night air through

the trees.

After waiting irresolute, for a minute or more, in the middle of the

room, he moved to the corner near the window, where the Indian cabinet

stood.

He put his candle on the top of the cabinet. He opened, and shut, one

drawer after another, until he came to the drawer in which the mock

Diamond was put. He looked into the drawer for a moment. Then he took

the mock Diamond out with his right hand. With the other hand, he took

the candle from the top of the cabinet.

He walked back a few steps towards the middle of the room, and stood

still again.

Thus far, he had exactly repeated what he had done on the birthday

night. Would his next proceeding be the same as the proceeding of last

year? Would he leave the room? Would he go back now, as I believed he

had gone back then, to his bed-chamber? Would he show us what he had

done with the Diamond, when he had returned to his own room?

His first action, when he moved once more, proved to be an action which

he had not performed, when he was under the influence of the opium for

the first time. He put the candle down on a table, and wandered on a

little towards the farther end of the room. There was a sofa there.

He leaned heavily on the back of it, with his left hand--then roused

himself, and returned to the middle of the room. I could now see his

eyes. They were getting dull and heavy; the glitter in them was fast

dying out.

The suspense of the moment proved too much for Miss Verinder's

self-control. She advanced a few steps--then stopped again. Mr. Bruff

and Betteredge looked across the open doorway at me for the first time.

The prevision of a coming disappointment was impressing itself on their

minds as well as on mine.