All the time I lay awake the house was as quiet as the grave.

Not a sound stirred but the splash of the rain, and the sighing of the wind among the trees as a breeze 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.