第18章

`Well,' says Mr.Franklin, `now you have read the Colonel's own statement, what do you say? In bringing the Moonstone to my aunt's house, am I serving his vengeance blindfold, or am I vindicating him in the character of a penitent and Christian man?'

`It seems hard to say, sir,' I answered, `that he died with a horrid revenge in his heart, and a horrid lie on his lips.God alone knows the truth.Don't ask me.'

Mr.Franklin sat twisting and turning the extract from the Will in his fingers, as if he expected to squeeze the truth out of it in that manner.

He altered quite remarkably, at the same time.From being brisk and bright, he now became, most unaccountably, a slow, solemn, and pondering young man.

`This question has two sides,' he said.`An Objective side, and a Subjective side.Which are we to take?'

He had had a German education as well as a French.One of the two had been in undisturbed possession of him (as I supposed) up to this time.

And now (as well as I could make out) the other was taking its place.It is one of my rules in life, never to notice what I don't understand.Isteered a middle course between the Objective side and the Subjective side.

In plain English I stared hard, and said nothing.

`Let's extract the inner meaning of this,' says Mr.Franklin.`Why did my uncle leave the Diamond to Rachel? Why didn't he leave it to my aunt?'

`That's not beyond guessing, sir, at any rate,' I said.`Colonel Herncastle knew my lady well enough to know that she would have refused to accept any legacy that came to her from him.'

`How did he know that Rachel might not refuse to accept it, too?'

`Is there any young lady in existence, sir, who could resist the temptation of accepting such a birthday present as the Moonstone?'

`That's the Subjective view,' says Mr.Franklin.`It does you great credit, Betteredge, to be able to take the Subjective view.But there's another mystery about the Colonel's legacy which is not accounted for yet.

How are we to explain his only giving Rachel her birthday present conditionally on her mother being alive?'

`I don't want to slander a dead man, sir,' I answered.`But if he has purposely left a legacy of trouble and danger to his sister, by the means of her child, it must be a legacy made conditional on his sister's being alive to feel the vexation of it.'

`Oh! That's your interpretation of his motive, is it? The Subjective interpretation again! Have you ever been in Germany, Betteredge?'

`No, sir.What's your interpretation, if you please?'

`I can see,' says Mr.Franklin, `that the Colonel's object may, quite possibly, have been -- not to benefit his niece, whom he had never even seen -- but to prove to his sister that he had died forgiving her, and to prove it very prettily by means of a present made to her child.There is a totally different explanation from yours, Betteredge, taking its rise in a Subjective-Objective point of view.From all I can see, one interpretation is just as likely to be right as the other.'

Having brought matters to this pleasant and comforting issue, Mr.Franklin appeared to think that he had completed all that was required of him.He laid down flat on his back on the sand, and asked what was to be done next.

He had been so clever and clear-headed (before he began to talk the foreign gibberish), and had so completely taken the lead in the business up to the present time, that I was quite unprepared for such a sudden change as he now exhibited in this helpless leaning upon me.It was not till later that I learned -- by assistance of Miss Rachel, who was the first to make the discovery -- that these puzzling shifts and transformations in Mr.Franklin were due to the effect on him of his foreign training.