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.”