CHAPTER XVIII

Jacqueline and I had not written to each other for nearly three weeks.

When I first returned from Bellagio I had intended to explain the apparent flippancy of my last words to her–that I could write the legend of the da Sestos clock, as well as search for the casket. For Jacqueline was, as I have said, quite ignorant that the casket and the clock were in any way connected.

But I had not done so. Partly because I wished to surprise her with that fact, and partly because success had not crowned our efforts as soon as I had hoped. I regretted that I had not told her everything; and yet each day I put off doing so. And so three weeks passed, and still I had not told her.

The fact is, this search for the casket had in some subtle way raised a barrier between Jacqueline and myself. At first I had entered into the quest with enthusiasm. Jacqueline’s entreaty had given the task a dignity and a certain sacredness. But, gradually, my motive for finding it was lost sight of. The madness of St. Hilary 178had also entered my veins. I became more and more eager for success purely for its own sake, and not for Jacqueline’s. The quest had become almost a mania–just such a restless, haunting, cruel longing as tempts the miner to drag his aching feet one more burning mile for the gold he covets. That Jacqueline had asked me to find the casket for her redeemed the search from folly. But as soon as I cared for the thing itself it became a degrading passion.

It was Sunday morning. St. Hilary had insisted upon my going once more to the Academy of Arts to compare the photograph of the eighth hour with Carpaccio’s picture, the Dismissal of the Ambassadors, in the series of paintings known as the Martyrdom of St. Ursula. I was still in search, of course, of the ever-baffling landmark.

The bell of the English church was solemnly tolling in the Campo San Agnese. The doors of the Academy were not yet open, and I began to watch listlessly the well-dressed throng of English and American tourists crossing the big iron bridge on their way to divine service. To my great surprise I saw Jacqueline among them.

There was a pensive look on her lovely face that touched me. I realized, now that I saw her, how great had been my folly. My eyes had been 179bent on the mire, while the goddess herself was passing by. I sprang up the steps of the bridge, and met her half-way across.

“Jacqueline,” I cried, “when did you come to Venice?”

She looked at me with a sort of gentle wonder. I put up my hand guiltily to my chin. St. Hilary and myself had grown so absorbed in our search that we had given little thought to what we ate or drank or what we wore or how we looked. But Jacqueline, it seemed, was observing my face and not my scrubby beard.

“We arrived last night. But you look a ghost, a shadow of yourself.”

“The hunt for the casket, Jacqueline, is an excellent preventive against obesity,” I said lightly.

At this reference to the casket the color slowly left her cheeks, and her eyes looked into mine wistfully.

“You–you are still searching for it?”

“Of course I am!” I answered almost gruffly.

“I did not know. You have not written,” she said quietly.

“If I have not written,” I answered, “it is because there was nothing to write about.”

“Nothing to write about, Dick?” She smiled dreamily.

180“Not worth mentioning, Jacqueline.”

“Then you are still in the dark?”

“Absolutely.”

“And–and you have little hope?”

“Almost no hope.”

Absorbed though I was in my own selfish feeling, I could not but notice the disappointment of her tone. We were at the church door now. She held out her hand. To see her pass thus out of my sight, to know that my own obstinacy was raising this barrier between us, that I had wounded her–I could not let her go like that, even for a few hours.

“Jacqueline,” I said firmly, “I wish to tell you about this search. I know a half street, half campo near here, delightfully shaded with mulberry trees. There are benches, and one may sit there and talk quietly. Will you go with me? I will not keep you long.”

“Well, Dick, what is it?” she asked when she was seated.

Her hands were clasped loosely in her lap. Her gaze passed me by, and dwelt on the cage of a thrush hanging on a nail in a doorway. The feathered prisoner was singing in ecstasy.

“This mad quest that you have sent me on,” I broke out impetuously, “I want you to release me from it.”

181She was silent a moment, then drew herself up with a certain hauteur.

“I release you from it, of course, since you wish it,” she answered with dignity.

“No, no, Jacqueline. Not in that way. Do not misunderstand me. I call it a mad quest not because it seems a hopeless one. It is mad, because it is useless. The most rigid sense of honor could not hold you to your lightly spoken word. You love the duke, or you do not. You love me, or you do not. Surely you do not pit us against each other. This is not a test of love. And so, I say, this quest is mad. It is leading me surely away from you. I am beginning to care for it for its own sake. I want you to release me from it.”

“It is leading you from me?” she repeated wonderingly. “But you are doing this for me. Does not that keep me in your thoughts? You say this is not a test of love. Why should it not be? And if the lover is weary already of his task–if–” Her lip trembled.

“Dear Jacqueline, how can I make you understand? I ask you to release me from this search, not because I am tired, not merely because I think the casket can not be found. It is the principle of the thing. Supposing that the duke should bring you this casket, could that possibly 182alter your feeling toward him? Could that make you love him more than you do at present?”

“Why should it not?” she answered, a little defiantly. “In a sense he has shown himself a truer lover than you. He is keeping up the search, cheerfully and patiently. And yet every day he finds time to write me of his failures and his successes. Apparently, I asked him to remove mountains. He attempts the impossible gladly, and sometimes I think he will accomplish it.”

“The duke has been searching for the casket? Here, in Venice?”

“Yes, and without a moment’s rest, so he assures me. More than that, he declares he is on its track–that he will bring it to me soon.”

I was stupefied. Neither St. Hilary nor I had once seen the duke since he left my rooms. It seemed incredible that he should have been in Venice these past three weeks and that we should not know it.

“He will bring you the casket soon?” I repeated blankly. “And if he brings it to you, you are going to listen to him? Because I have said nothing, Jacqueline, have you thought me idle and indifferent? Do you trust him more than you trust me? If he has the luck to stumble on this casket, will that prove that he is more worthy 183of your regard than I? Will you marry him for that?”

Jacqueline looked at me a moment in silence. She laid her hand gently on my arm.

“Has this quest troubled you so much? I begin to think it a very childish one. I begin to realize my folly, and yet––”

She rose from the bench, and shaking out her skirts daintily, opened her parasol.

“You are going, Jacqueline? There is no more to be said?”

“I told my aunt that I was going to church. I think I had better go. But afterward, if you will walk to the hotel with me, you may stay to luncheon, and in the afternoon you may take me out on the lagoon again. Then you shall tell me everything–just what you have done, and just what you have failed to do. And perhaps–perhaps, I may recall you from the task that you have undertaken for me.”

“Jacqueline,” I stammered with joy, “you mean–you mean that you may marry me without regard to this foolish promise of yours to the duke?”

“I mean,” she answered slowly, “that I must know everything–everything. Then I may be better able to judge just what I ought to do, what I wish to do.”

184“I shall wait for you at the church door. I must first go to my rooms to make myself presentable. Heavens, Jacqueline, if you could know the relief I feel at abandoning this mad search. It has been a nightmare; but now we shall go out into the blessed sunshine again.”

“But, Dick,” she said wistfully, “you will need to plead very eloquently this afternoon to convince me that I may withdraw my word to Duke da Sestos. If only it had been possible to find that wretched casket! I shall look for you after church.”

I watched her disappear within the doorway. In half an hour I had been to my rooms and returned. I slipped into a pew at the rear of the church. I wished to think–to dream. It seemed incredible that the search was ended. What would St. Hilary say when he knew that I had abandoned it? And, strange as it may seem, already I was vaguely sorry. Could I watch St. Hilary steadily going on with the search and be quite indifferent as to his success or failure? Should I never have regrets that I had not kept at it a little longer? Then I looked at Jacqueline, kneeling devoutly a few pews in front of me, and I smiled joyfully. No, with Jacqueline as my wife, I had no need of the excitement of a fool’s errand.

185Out of the stillness of my thoughts, as if from afar off, the text of the preacher fell on my ears, unheeding and yet strangely receptive. The text was twice repeated. It was sufficiently fantastic in itself, but to me it was the finger of fate.

It was pointing to the hiding-place of the da Sestos casket.