“He may say what he pleases.”

It was impossible not to admire her delicacy and her resolution, and it was equally impossible not to feel that she was putting herself in the wrong.  I entreated her to consider her own position I reminded her that she would be exposing herself to the most odious misconstruction of her motives.  “You can’t brave public opinion,” I said, “at the command of private feeling.”

“I can,” she answered.  “I have done it already.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have forgotten the Moonstone, Mr. Bruff.  Have I not braved public opinion, there, with my own private reasons for it?”

Her answer silenced me for the moment.  It set me trying to trace the explanation of her conduct, at the time of the loss of the Moonstone, out of the strange avowal which had just escaped her.  I might perhaps have done it when I was younger.  I certainly couldn’t do it now.

I tried a last remonstrance before we returned to the house.  She was just as immovable as ever.  My mind was in a strange conflict of feelings about her when I left her that day.  She was obstinate; she was wrong.  She was interesting; she was admirable; she was deeply to be pitied.  I made her promise to write to me the moment she had any news to send.  And I went back to my business in London, with a mind exceedingly ill at ease.

On the evening of my return, before it was possible for me to receive my promised letter, I was surprised by a visit from Mr. Ablewhite the elder, and was informed that Mr. Godfrey had got his dismissal—­and had accepted it—­that very day.

With the view I already took of the case, the bare fact stated in the words that I have underlined, revealed Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite’s motive for submission as plainly as if he had acknowledged it himself.  He needed a large sum of money; and he needed it by a given time.  Rachel’s income, which would have helped him to anything else, would not help him here; and Rachel had accordingly released herself, without encountering a moment’s serious opposition on his part.  If I am told that this is a mere speculation, I ask, in my turn, what other theory will account for his giving up a marriage which would have maintained him in splendour for the rest of his life?

Any exultation I might otherwise have felt at the lucky turn which things had now taken, was effectually checked by what passed at my interview with old Mr. Ablewhite.

He came, of course, to know whether I could give him any explanation of Miss Verinder’s extraordinary conduct.  It is needless to say that I was quite unable to afford him the information he wanted.  The annoyance which I thus inflicted, following on the irritation produced by a recent interview with his son, threw Mr. Ablewhite off his guard.  Both his looks and his language convinced me that Miss Verinder would find him a merciless man to deal with, when he joined the ladies at Brighton the next day.