To speak seriously, it is perhaps possible
that my German training was in some degree responsible for the labyrinth
of useless speculations in which I now involved myself. For the greater
part of the night, I sat smoking, and building up theories, one more
profoundly improbable than another. When I did get to sleep, my
waking fancies pursued me in dreams. I rose the next morning, with
Objective-Subjective and Subjective-Objective inextricably entangled
together in my mind; and I began the day which was to witness my next
effort at practical action of some kind, by doubting whether I had any
sort of right (on purely philosophical grounds) to consider any sort of
thing (the Diamond included) as existing at all.
How long I might have remained lost in the mist of my own metaphysics,
if I had been left to extricate myself, it is impossible for me to say.
As the event proved, accident came to my rescue, and happily delivered
me. I happened to wear, that morning, the same coat which I had worn on
the day of my interview with Rachel. Searching for something else in one
of the pockets, I came upon a crumpled piece of paper, and, taking it
out, found Betteredge's forgotten letter in my hand.
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