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
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?"