"I rose to take leave of [Ezra Jennings]; and attempted to express the grateful sense of his kindness which I really felt.

"He pressed my hand gently. 'Remember what I told you on the moor,' he answered. 'If I can do you this little service, Mr. Blake, I shall feel it like a last gleam of sunshine, falling on the evening of a long and clouded day.'

"We parted. It was then the fifteenth of June. The events of the next ten days—every one of them more or less directly connected with the experiment of which I was the passive object—are all placed on record, exactly as they happened, in the Journal habitually kept by Mr. Candy's assistant. In the pages of Ezra Jennings nothing is concealed, and nothing is forgotten. Let Ezra Jennings tell how the venture with the opium was tried, and how it ended." (Third Narrative, Chapter 10)

Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone was published in weekly parts in Dickens's magazine, All the Year Round. Collins's sensation novel is full of all the things the genre was known for: mystery, suspense, and cryptic clues. It must have been excruciating for the original readers to read a chapter or two and then have to wait a full week for the next installment. Basically, it's the same way we felt at the end of the third season of The Vampire Diaries (spoiler alert!).

For her birthday, the young heroine, Rachel, receives a priceless diamond from her uncle. Only this diamond has a troubled past: her uncle stole it while he was in India, and three Hindu priests are sworn to return it to its rightful home. So when the diamond mysteriously disappears, everyone is a suspect. Is it someone in the family? A servant? Or the priests trying to recover the diamond that was stolen?

Suspense, Objectivity, and Mystery

To solve the mystery, the characters take turns as the narrator. Each character relates everything he or she can remember about the diamond's disappearance and then passes on the baton. It's like each character is trying to conquer the mystery with facts and objectivity.

By the time we get the passage above, the search for the moonstone is in full swing. Franklin Blake narrates this section—he's Rachel's dashing and adventurous cousin (and suitor). As you'd expect, he'd like to be the one to come to her rescue. So, to figure out what happened the night the diamond went missing, Blake—with the help of Ezra Jennings, assistant extraordinaire—is going to run an experiment, recreating the conditions of that night. Because what do you do when a mystery runs so deep that it seems like some supernatural power is at work? Apply the scientific method.

Stay Tuned 

This passage feels like both an end and a beginning. It's the end of Blake's section, and it seems like Collins wants to remind us about where we are in the timeline of the plot. We've got a reference to a past conversation on the moor, a specific date for the present moment ("It was then the fifteenth of June"), and a foreshadowing shout-out to what's about to happen (the "events of the next ten days").

We also learn about the fellow who's going to be our next narrator and guide, Ezra Jennings. Apparently he's got a journal where he honestly records everything. And now we get to voyeuristically read over his shoulder.

So if that doesn't make you want to keep reading, what will? Well, possibly Blake's hints about what will happen next (some kind of experiment that he's the "passive object" of). It's almost like a movie trailer with teasers. Serialization encourages authors to change their style so that each weekly bit gives us something entertaining. It also leaves us wanting more, so that we'll pick up the next installment.