The Moonstone

by Wilkie Collins

I beg it to be understood that what I write here about my cousin (unless some necessity should arise for making it public) is for the information of the family only.

If I made the matter public, I have no evidence but moral evidence to bring forward.

It is one of my rules in life, never to notice what I don't understand.

Yes! after the lapse of eight centuries, the Moonstone looks forth once more, over the walls of the sacred city in which its story first began. How it has found its way back to its wild native land—by what accident, or by what crime, the Indians regained possession of their sacred gem, may be in your knowledge, but is not in mine. You have lost sight of it in England, and (if I know anything of this people) you have lost sight of it for ever.

writing the Indians out of the narrative - not giving them voice preserves the domestic space perhaps