CHAPTER VII

von Wilkie Collins

As soon as I stepped into the doorway, Rachel rose from the piano.

I closed the door behind me, and we faced each other in silence, the entire length of the room separating us. The effort it took for her to stand seemed to drain her of all other energy. It was as if every part of her—both body and mind—was focused solely on looking at me.

A sudden fear gripped me that I had appeared too abruptly. I took a few steps toward her and said softly, “Rachel.”

The sound of my voice seemed to revive her. Color returned to her cheeks, and she moved toward me, still silent. Slowly, as if compelled by something beyond her control, she drew closer, her warm, dusky complexion flushing with emotion, the light of recognition brightening in her eyes. In that moment, I forgot why I had come; I forgot the terrible suspicion that clouded my reputation; I forgot everything I was supposed to remember—past, present, and future. All I could see was the woman I loved moving closer to me. She trembled, hesitating. I couldn’t hold back any longer—I pulled her into my arms and showered her face with kisses.

For a brief moment, I thought she might be kissing me back; it felt like she had forgotten everything too. But before I could fully grasp that thought, her first conscious action shattered it. With a cry that echoed horror and a strength I doubted I could have resisted, she pushed me away. Her eyes were filled with unyielding anger, her lips curled in contempt. She looked me up and down as if I were a stranger who had insulted her.

“You coward!” she spat. “You pathetic, heartless coward!”

Those were her first words. The harshest accusation a woman can level at a man was the one she chose to hurl at me.

“I remember a time, Rachel,” I replied, “when you would have confronted me about my offense in a much more dignified way. I’m sorry.”

The bitterness I felt must have seeped into my voice. At my words, her gaze, which had turned away just moments before, flickered back to me, though reluctantly. She spoke in a low tone, her manner heavy with a sullen resignation that was new to me.

“Maybe I have some reason to feel this way,” she said. “After everything you’ve done, is it really manly of you to approach me like this? It feels like a cowardly trick, trying to exploit my feelings for you. It seems like a cowardly surprise to catch me off guard and make me let you kiss me. But I suppose that’s just a woman’s perspective. I should have known better than to expect you to see it that way. I would have been better off if I had just kept my mouth shut.”

Her apology stung more than the insult. Even the most degraded man would have felt humiliated by it.

“If my honor weren’t in your hands,” I said, “I would walk out of here right now and never look back. You’ve mentioned what I’ve done. What exactly have I done?”

“What have you done! _You_ ask _me_ that?”

“I do.”

“I’ve kept your disgrace a secret,” she replied. “And I’ve paid the price for hiding it. Don’t I deserve to be spared the insult of your asking what you’ve done? Has all sense of gratitude vanished from you? You were once a gentleman. You were once dear to my mother, and even more to me—”

Her voice faltered, and she sank into a chair, turning her back to me and covering her face with her hands.

I waited a moment before I dared to speak again. In that silence, I couldn’t tell which hurt more—the sting of her contempt or the proud resolve that kept me from sharing in her distress.

“If you won’t speak first,” I said, “then I will. I came here to discuss something serious with you. Will you at least do me the courtesy of listening?”

She didn’t move or respond. I didn’t press her further; I didn’t step closer to her chair. With a stubborn pride that matched her own, I recounted my discovery at the Shivering Sand and everything that led up to it. The story took some time to tell, and throughout, she never turned to look at me or utter a word.

I kept my composure. My entire future likely depended on my ability to remain calm at that moment. It was time to test Mr. Bruff’s theory. In the tense silence that followed, I positioned myself directly in front of her.

“I have a question for you,” I said. “It requires me to bring up a painful subject again. Did Rosanna Spearman show you the nightgown? Yes or no?”

She sprang to her feet and walked toward me, her own choice. Her eyes searched my face, as if trying to uncover something they had never seen before.

“Are you out of your mind?” she asked.

I held myself back, forcing calm into my voice. “Rachel, will you answer my question?”

But she continued, ignoring me.

“Do you have some hidden agenda that I don’t understand? Some petty fear about the future that involves me? They say your father’s death has made you wealthy. Did you come here to make up for the loss of my Diamond? Do you even have the decency to feel ashamed of what you’re doing? Is that the reason behind your act of innocence and the story about Rosanna Spearman? Is there a shameful motive behind all this deception?”

I couldn’t let her go on any longer. My self-control shattered.

“You’ve done me a terrible wrong!” I exclaimed, my voice rising. “You think I stole your Diamond. I deserve to know why, and I will find out!”

“Think you stole it?” she shot back, her anger matching mine. “You scoundrel, I saw you take the Diamond with my own eyes!”

The weight of her words crashed over me, shattering the entire perspective Mr. Bruff had relied upon. Despite my innocence, I stood before her in stunned silence. To her, and to anyone, I must have appeared as a man crushed by the revelation of his own guilt.

She stepped back, momentarily taken aback by my humiliation and her own triumph. The silence that enveloped me seemed to unsettle her. “I spared you back then,” she said. “I would have spared you now if you hadn’t forced me to speak.” She turned as if to leave the room but hesitated at the door. “Why did you come here to humiliate yourself?” she asked. “Why did you come here to humiliate me?” She took a few steps and paused again. “For heaven’s sake, say something!” she cried, her voice filled with desperation. “If you have any mercy left, don’t let me degrade myself like this! Say something—and send me out of the room!”

I moved toward her, barely aware of my actions. I might have had a vague idea of keeping her there until she revealed more. The moment I realized that the evidence condemning me in Rachel’s eyes came from her own observations, everything—my conviction of innocence included—became muddled. I took her hand, trying to speak with purpose. All I managed to say was, “Rachel, you once loved me.”

She shuddered and turned her gaze away. Her hand lay limp and trembling in mine. “Let go of it,” she said softly.

My touch seemed to affect her as my voice had when I first entered the room. After she had called me a coward and branded me a thief—while her hand rested in mine, I still held some power over her.

I gently pulled her back into the center of the room and sat beside her. “Rachel,” I said, “I can’t explain the contradiction in what I’m about to tell you. I can only speak the truth as you have stated it. You saw me—with your own eyes, you saw me take the Diamond. Before God who hears us, I swear that I now realize I took it for the first time! Do you still doubt me?”

She didn’t seem to hear me. “Let go of my hand,” she repeated softly. That was her only response. Her head fell onto my shoulder, and her hand instinctively tightened around mine at the moment she asked me to release it.

I held back from pressing the issue. But that restraint only went so far. My chance of ever holding my head high among honest men depended on convincing her to fully disclose what she knew. My only hope was that she might have overlooked something in the evidence—perhaps a small detail that could ultimately clear my name. I admit I kept her hand in mine. I spoke to her with all the sympathy and trust I could muster from our past.

“I want to ask you something,” I said. “I need you to tell me everything that happened, from the moment we said goodnight to when you saw me take the Diamond.”

She lifted her head from my shoulder and tried to pull her hand away. “Oh, why go back to it?” she said. “Why revisit it?”

“I’ll tell you why, Rachel. We are both victims of a monstrous delusion disguised as truth. If we examine what happened on your birthday, we might still find a way to understand each other.”

Her head fell back onto my shoulder. Tears filled her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. “Oh!” she said, “have I never had that hope? Have I not tried to see it, just as you are trying now?”

“You’ve tried on your own,” I replied. “You haven’t tried with me to help you.”

Those words seemed to spark a flicker of hope in her, mirroring the feeling I had when I spoke them. She answered my questions with more than just compliance—she engaged her mind, opening up to me completely.

“Let’s start with what happened after we said goodnight,” I suggested. “Did you go to bed right away, or did you stay up?”

“I went to bed.”

“Did you notice the time? Was it late?”

“Not really. I think it was around midnight.”

“Did you fall asleep?”

“No. I couldn’t sleep that night.”

“You were restless?”

“I was thinking about you.”

Her answer nearly overwhelmed me. There was something in her tone, even more than in her words, that pierced straight to my heart. I paused for a moment before continuing.

“Did you have any light in your room?” I asked.

“None—until I got up again and lit my candle.”

“How long was that after you went to bed?”

“About an hour later, I think. Around one o’clock.”

“Did you leave your bedroom?”

“I was about to. I had put on my dressing gown and was heading to the sitting room to get a book—”

“Had you opened your bedroom door?”

“I had just opened it.”

“But you hadn’t gone into the sitting room?”

“No—I was stopped from going in.”

“What stopped you?”

“I saw a light under the door, and I heard footsteps approaching.”

“Were you scared?”

“Not at that moment. I knew my mother had trouble sleeping, and I remembered how hard she had tried to convince me to let her take care of my Diamond. I thought she was coming to check if I was in bed and to talk to me about the Diamond again if she found me up.”

“What did you do?”

“I blew out my candle so she would think I was in bed. I was being unreasonable—I was determined to keep my Diamond where I wanted it.”

“After blowing out the candle, did you go back to bed?”

“I didn’t have time to go back. Just as I blew out the candle, the sitting room door opened, and I saw—”

“You saw?”

“You.”

“Dressed as usual?”

“No.”

“In my nightgown?”

“In your nightgown, with your bedroom candle in your hand.”

“Alone?”

“Alone.”

“Could you see my face?”

“Yes.”

“Clearly?”

“Quite clearly. The candle in your hand lit it up.”

“Were my eyes open?”

“Yes.”

“Did you notice anything strange about them? Like a vacant stare?”

“Nothing like that. Your eyes were bright—brighter than usual. You looked around the room as if you knew you were where you shouldn’t be and were afraid of being caught.”

“Did you notice how I walked when I came into the room?”

“You walked just like you always do. You came in to the middle of the room, then stopped and looked around.”

“What did you do when you first saw me?”

“I was frozen. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t call out, couldn’t even move to close my door.”

“Could I see you from where you stood?”

“You could have seen me, but you never looked my way. It’s pointless to ask; I’m sure you never saw me.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Would you have taken the Diamond? Would you have acted the way you did afterward? Would you be here now if you had seen that I was awake and watching you? Please, let’s not talk about that part! I want to answer you calmly. Let’s move on to something else.”

She was right—completely right. I shifted to other topics.

“What did I do after I reached the middle of the room and stopped?”

“You turned away and went straight to the corner by the window—where my Indian cabinet is.”

“When I was at the cabinet, my back must have been to you. How did you see what I was doing?”

“When you moved, I moved.”

“So you could see what I was doing with my hands?”

“There are three mirrors in my sitting room. As you stood there, I saw everything you did reflected in one of them.”

“What did you see?”

“You put your candle on top of the cabinet. You opened and closed one drawer after another until you reached the one where I had put my Diamond. You looked at the open drawer for a moment, then you reached in and took the Diamond out.”

“How do you know I took the Diamond?”

“I saw your hand go into the drawer. I saw the gleam of the stone between your fingers when you pulled your hand out.”

“Did my hand go back to the drawer to close it, for instance?”

“No. You held the Diamond in your right hand and took the candle from the top of the cabinet with your left.”

“Did I look around again after that?”

“No.”

“Did I leave the room right away?”

“No. You stood still for what felt like a long time. I saw your profile in the mirror. You looked like a man deep in thought, dissatisfied with his own mind.”

“What happened next?”

“You suddenly snapped out of it and went straight out of the room.”

“Did I close the door behind me?”

“No. You hurried out into the hallway, leaving the door open.”

“And then?”

“Then your light vanished, and the sound of your footsteps faded away, leaving me alone in the dark.”

“Did nothing happen—from the moment you left until the whole house found out the Diamond was missing?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Are you absolutely sure? Could you have been asleep for part of that time?”

“I never slept. I didn’t go back to my bed. Nothing happened until Penelope came in at her usual time in the morning.”

I let go of her hand, stood up, and began to pace the room. Every question I had was answered. Every detail I wanted to know was laid out before me. I even considered the possibility of sleepwalking or being intoxicated, but both theories had been dismissed—this time by the witness who had seen me. What could I say next? What could I do? The harsh reality of the Theft loomed over me—the one clear, undeniable fact that confronted me amid the thick darkness that surrounded everything else. I had once uncovered Rosanna Spearman’s secret at the Shivering Sand, but now, even after speaking to Rachel herself and hearing the painful account of that night from her own lips, I was still in the dark.

Rachel was the first to break the silence.

“Well?” she said. “You’ve asked your questions, and I’ve answered. You made me hope for something because you hoped for something. What do you have to say now?”

Her tone warned me that my influence over her was gone once again.

“We were supposed to look at what happened on my birthday night together,” she continued. “Were we able to understand each other?”

She waited, unyielding, for my response. In answering her, I made a grave mistake—I let my frustration with my situation get the better of me. Rashly, I reproached her for the silence that had kept me in the dark until that moment.

“If you had spoken when you should have,” I began, “if you had done me the basic justice of explaining yourself—”

She interrupted me with a cry of fury. The few words I had uttered seemed to ignite her into a frenzy of rage.

“Explain myself!” she echoed. “Is there another man like this in the world? I protect him when my heart is breaking; I shield him when my own reputation is at stake; and he—of all people—turns on me now, telling me I should have explained myself! After believing in him as I did, after loving him as I did, after thinking of him by day and dreaming of him by night—he wonders why I didn’t confront him with his disgrace the first time we met: ‘My beloved, you are a Thief! My hero whom I love and honor, you crept into my room under the cover of night and stole my Diamond!’ That’s what I should have said. You villain, you mean, mean villain, I would have given up fifty diamonds rather than see your face lying to me as it does now!”

I picked up my hat. Out of mercy for her—yes, I can honestly say that—out of mercy for her, I turned away without another word and opened the door through which I had entered.

She followed me, snatched the door from my hand, closed it, and pointed back to the place I had just left.

“No!” she said. “Not yet! It seems I owe you an explanation for my actions. You will stay and hear it. Or you can sink to the lowest depths of infamy and force your way out.”

It broke my heart to see her like this; it broke my heart to hear her. I could only gesture in submission to her will.

The flush of anger began to fade from her face as I returned to my chair in silence. She waited a moment, gathering herself. When she spoke again, only one sign of emotion was visible. She spoke without looking at me, her hands tightly clasped in her lap, her eyes fixed on the ground.

“I should have done you the basic justice of explaining myself,” she said, echoing my earlier words. “You will see whether I tried to do you justice or not. I told you just now that I never slept and never returned to my bed after you left my sitting room. It’s pointless to go into what I thought—you wouldn’t understand my thoughts. I’ll just tell you what I did when enough time had passed for me to collect myself. I didn’t alarm the house or tell everyone what had happened—as I should have. Despite what I had seen, I cared enough for you to believe—no matter how impossible it seemed—that you weren’t deliberately a thief. I thought and thought, and in the end, I wrote to you.”

“I never received the letter.”

“I know you never got my letter. Just wait a moment, and I’ll explain why. It wouldn’t have revealed everything outright. It wouldn’t have ruined your life if someone else had found it. It would have simply stated—though you would have understood perfectly—that I had reason to believe you were in debt, and that from my experience and my mother’s, you weren’t very careful or honest about how you got money when you needed it. You would have remembered the visit from the French lawyer, and you would have known exactly what I meant.

If you had kept reading, you would have found an offer I wanted to make to you—a private offer (not a word of it should be spoken openly between us!) for a loan of as much money as I could manage to get. And I would have gotten it!” She exclaimed, her cheeks flushing again, her eyes meeting mine once more. “I would have even pledged the Diamond myself if that was the only way to get the money! That’s what I wrote to you. But wait! I did more than that. I arranged with Penelope to give you the letter when no one else was around. I planned to shut myself in my bedroom and leave the sitting room empty all morning. I hoped—with all my heart and soul I hoped!—that you would take the chance and secretly put the Diamond back in the drawer.”

I tried to respond, but she raised her hand, stopping me. Her temper was shifting again, and her anger was rising. She stood up from her chair and moved closer to me.

“I know what you’re going to say,” she continued. “You’re going to remind me again that you never received my letter. I can tell you why. I tore it up.

“For what reason?” I asked.

“For the best reason. I’d rather tear it up than waste it on someone like you! What was the first thing I heard that morning? Just as my little plan was coming together, what did I find out? I heard that you—you!!!—were the first person in the house to call the police. You were the one taking charge; you were leading the effort, working harder than anyone else to recover the jewel! You even had the nerve to ask to speak to me about the loss of the Diamond—the Diamond you had stolen; the Diamond that was in your hands the whole time! After that display of your deceit and cunning, I tore up my letter. But even then—when I was furious with the police officer you had sent in, questioning me—there was still some part of me that wouldn’t let you go. I thought to myself, ‘He’s put on this horrible act in front of everyone else in the house. Let me see if he can keep it up in front of me.’ Someone told me you were on the terrace. I went down to the terrace. I forced myself to look at you; I forced myself to speak to you. Have you forgotten what I said?”

I could have told her that I remembered every word. But what good would that have done in that moment?

How could I explain that what she had said had shocked me, distressed me, made me question whether she truly didn’t know more about the jewel’s disappearance than the rest of us—but never once gave me a hint of the truth? Without any proof to clear my name, how could I convince her that I was as clueless as a stranger about what she really thought when we spoke on the terrace?

“It may be convenient for you to forget; it suits me to remember,” she continued. “I know what I said—I thought it through before I spoke. I gave you every chance to confess the truth. I left nothing unsaid that I could say—except actually telling you that I knew you had stolen it. And all you did in return was look at me with that pathetic act of surprise and your false innocence—just like you’re looking at me now! I walked away that morning, finally seeing you for what you are—a base wretch, as low as they come!”

“If you had just spoken up back then, you might have left knowing you had wronged an innocent man, Rachel.”

“If I had spoken up in front of others,” she shot back, her anger flaring again, “you would have been ruined for life! If I had only told you, you would have denied it, just like you’re doing now! Do you really think I would have believed you? Would a man who did what I saw you do hesitate to lie? After the way you acted afterward, as I witnessed? I’m telling you again, I couldn’t bear the thought of hearing you lie after seeing you steal. You act like this is just a misunderstanding that could be cleared up with a few words! Well, the misunderstanding is over. Is everything fixed now? No! It’s exactly the same as it was. I don’t believe you now! I don’t believe you found the nightgown, I don’t trust Rosanna Spearman’s letter, I don’t believe a single word you’ve said. You stole it—I saw you! You pretended to help the police—I saw you! You pawned the Diamond to a moneylender in London—I know it! You shifted the blame for your disgrace (thanks to my cowardice!) onto an innocent man! You ran off to the Continent with your stolen goods the very next morning! After all that, there was only one more thing you could do. You could come here with one last lie on your lips—you could come here and tell me that I’ve wronged you!”

If I had stayed even a moment longer, I don’t know what words might have slipped out that I would regret. I brushed past her and opened the door again. For the second time—driven by the frantic energy of a wounded woman—she grabbed my arm and blocked my way.

“Let me go, Rachel,” I said. “It’s better for both of us. Just let me go.”

Her emotions surged, her rapid, shaky breaths almost brushed against my face as she held me at the door.

“Why did you come here?” she demanded, desperation in her voice. “I’m asking you again—why did you come here? Are you afraid I’ll expose you? Now that you’re a rich man, now that you have a place in the world, now that you could marry the best woman around—are you scared I’ll say the words I’ve never said to anyone but you? I can’t say those words! I can’t expose you! I’m worse, if worse is even possible, than you are!” Tears and sobs broke free from her. She fought against them fiercely, holding on to me tighter. “I can’t tear you out of my heart,” she said, “even now! You can rely on the shameful weakness that can only fight against you like this!” Suddenly, she released me—throwing her hands up, she wrung them desperately in the air. “Any other woman would shy away from the disgrace of touching you!” she cried. “Oh, God! I despise myself even more than I despise him!”

Tears were welling in my eyes despite my efforts to hold them back—the horror of it all was unbearable.

“You will know that you’ve wronged me,” I said. “Or you’ll never see me again!”

With those words, I walked away from her. She sprang up from the chair where she had slumped just moments before—such a noble creature!—and followed me into the next room, offering one last compassionate word as we parted.

“Franklin!” she called, “I forgive you! Oh, Franklin, Franklin! We’ll never meet again. Please say you forgive me!”

I turned, letting my face show her that I was beyond words—I turned and waved my hand, seeing her dimly through the tears that had finally overwhelmed me.

In the next moment, the worst of it was behind me. I was back in the garden. I saw her and heard her no more.