The two young men looked into each other’s face for some moments. Not a sound was heard beyond the monotonous tick-tick of the clock on the chimneypiece.
“What is the meaning of this?” demanded Captain Desfrayne.
He recollected the night when he engaged this man as his servant—it seemed months ago—when he had seen him clench his fist at the pictured resemblance to Lucia Guiscardini.
Gilardoni took up the tiny gold cross in its filmy covering, and kept it in his hand.
“Sir,” he said, “this morning you dropped this—as I supposed. I picked it up——”
“Both self-evident facts. As it happens to belong to me, and you acknowledge my proprietorship, why do you not restore it to me?” said Captain Desfrayne. “Do you know what it is?”
Gilardoni laughed bitterly.
“I naturally opened the packet, in order to ascertain what the contents might be,” he responded, “for I was not certain until now that it had really been dropped by you, sir. It is——”
“What is it? A gold cross, a pendant for a watch-chain.”
“More than that.”