sprang up with the morning.

About half-past seven I woke, and opened my window on a fine sunshiny
day. The clock had struck eight, and I was just going out to chain up
the dogs again, when I heard a sudden whisking of petticoats on the
stairs behind me.

I turned about, and there was Penelope flying down after me like mad.
"Father!" she screamed, "come up-stairs, for God's sake! THE DIAMOND IS
GONE!" "Are you out of your mind?" I asked her.

"Gone!" says Penelope. "Gone, nobody knows how! Come up and see."

She dragged me after her into our young lady's sitting-room, which
opened into her bedroom. There, on the threshold of her bedroom door,
stood Miss Rachel, almost as white in the face as the white dressing-gown
that clothed her. There also stood the two doors of the Indian cabinet,
wide open. One, of the drawers inside was pulled out as far as it would
go.

"Look!" says Penelope. "I myself saw Miss Rachel put the Diamond into
that drawer last night." I went to the cabinet. The drawer was empty.

"Is this true, miss?" I asked.

With a look that was not like herself, with a voice that was not like
her own, Miss Rachel answered as my daughter had answered: "The Diamond
is gone!" Having said those words, she withdrew into her bedroom, and
shut and locked the door.