The next event in your cousin’s life refers again to Miss Verinder.  He proposed marriage to her for the second time—­and (after having being accepted) he consented, at her request, to consider the marriage as broken off.  One of his reasons for making this concession has been penetrated by Mr. Bruff.  Miss Verinder had only a life interest in her mother’s property—­and there was no raising the twenty thousand pounds on that.

But you will say, he might have saved the three thousand pounds, to redeem the pledged Diamond, if he had married.  He might have done so certainly—­supposing neither his wife, nor her guardians and trustees, objected to his anticipating more than half of the income at his disposal, for some unknown purpose, in the first year of his marriage.  But even if he got over this obstacle, there was another waiting for him in the background.  The lady at the Villa, had heard of his contemplated marriage.  A superb woman, Mr. Blake, of the sort that are not to be triffled with—­the sort with the light complexion and the Roman nose.  She felt the utmost contempt for Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.  It would be silent contempt, if he made a handsome provision for her.  Otherwise, it would be contempt with a tongue to it.  Miss Verinder’s life interest allowed him no more hope of raising the “provision” than of raising the twenty thousand pounds.  He couldn’t marry—­he really couldn’t marry, under all the circumstances.

How he tried his luck again with another lady, and how that marriage also broke down on the question of money, you know already.  You also know of the legacy of five thousand pounds, left to him shortly afterwards, by one of those many admirers among the soft sex whose good graces this fascinating man had contrived to win.  That legacy (as the event has proved) led him to his death.

I have ascertained that when he went abroad, on getting his five thousand pounds, he went to Amsterdam.  There he made all the necessary arrangements for having the Diamond cut into separate stones.  He came back (in disguise), and redeemed the Moonstone, on the appointed day.  A few days were allowed to elapse (as a precaution agreed to by both parties) before the jewel was actually taken out of the bank.  If he had got safe with it to Amsterdam, there would have been just time between July ’forty-nine, and February ’fifty (when the young gentleman came of age) to cut the Diamond, and to make a marketable commodity (polished or unpolished) of the separate stones.  Judge from this, what motives he had to run the risk which he actually ran.  It was “neck or nothing” with him—­if ever it was “neck or nothing” with a man yet.

I have only to remind you, before closing this Report, that there is a chance of laying hands on the Indians, and of recovering the Moonstone yet.  They are now (there is every reason to believe) on their passage to Bombay, in an East Indiaman.  The ship (barring accidents) will touch at no other port on her way out; and the authorities at Bombay (already communicated with by letter, overland) will be prepared to board the vessel, the moment she enters the harbour.