“There is no ill-feeling in this, Mr. Franklin, on your side—is there?”
“There was some anger,” I answered, “when I left London. But that is all worn out now. I want to make Rachel come to an understanding with me—and I want nothing more.”
“You don’t feel any fear, sir—supposing you make any discoveries—in regard to what you may find out about Miss Rachel?”
I understood the jealous belief in his young mistress which prompted those words.
“I am as certain of her as you are,” I answered. “The fullest disclosure of her secret will reveal nothing that can alter her place in your estimation, or in mine.”
Betteredge’s last-left scruples vanished at that.
“If I am doing wrong to help you, Mr. Franklin,” he exclaimed, “all I can say is—I am as innocent of seeing it as the babe unborn! I can put you on the road to discovery, if you can only go on by yourself. You remember that poor girl of ours—Rosanna Spearman?”
“Of course!”
“You always thought she had some sort of confession in regard to this matter of the Moonstone, which she wanted to make to you?”
“I certainly couldn’t account for her strange conduct in any other way.”