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 had 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 bent
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.
“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.”
She 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 alter
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 of 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.”
“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.
Out 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._