"Good-bye, Clack," she said, carelessly.
Her insolence roused no angry feeling in me; I only made a private memorandum to pray for her.
When we were left by ourselves, my aunt told me the whole horrible story of the Indian Diamond, which, I am happy to know, it is not necessary to repeat here.

She did not conceal from me that she would have preferred keeping silence on the subject.

But when her own servants all knew of the loss of the Moonstone, and when some of the circumstances had actually found their way into the newspapers--when strangers were speculating whether there was any connection between what had happened at Lady Verinder's country-house, and what had happened in Northumberland Street and Alfred Place--concealment was not to be thought of; and perfect frankness became a necessity as well as a virtue.
Some persons, hearing what I now heard, would have been probably overwhelmed with astonishment.

For my own part, knowing Rachel's spirit to have been essentially unregenerate from her childhood upwards, I was prepared for whatever my aunt could tell me on the subject of her daughter.

It might have gone on from bad to worse till it ended in Murder; and I should still have said to myself, The natural result! oh, dear, dear, the natural result! The one thing that DID shock me was the course my aunt had taken under the circumstances.