"I am not sure. I am not quite sure that I did give it to him after all. Oh, I cannot remember anything any more."
He clasped his hands to his head as though striving to compress his brain and to compel it to action. The train moved away from the station.
"You can send it to him, in any case," suggested Diana, in an agony of sympathy and suspense. She would have added "from Pegli," if she had dared; but she was not sure he would remember his stray remark, or whether he had meant it. In a moment it was too late.
"Of course," cried Marcantonio, delighted with the idea. "I can send it from Turin. He deserves it well. There will be time,"—he hesitated and spoke slowly,—"there will be time,—yes, there will be time, before I find him." His voice fell almost to a whisper, barely audible to Diana in the noise of the train as it gained speed in starting. He seemed unconscious of her at the moment when he said the last words, and she sat with clasped hands and set lips, not knowing what to expect next. In a little while he began again. She had been too much struck by his quick change of manner to find the thing to say, in time to lead him off.
"I went into her room," he said. He stopped and fumbled in his pockets, producing at last the cross of sapphires and diamonds. "I found this," he added, showing it to Diana. She would have taken it, but he held it nervously in his hand, more than half concealed. "Do you know it?"
"Yes," said she as quietly as she could. "It belonged to our mother."
"It is beautifully made," he said suddenly, looking closely at it. "It is most beautifully made, and the stones are very valuable. Should you not think that they are worth a great deal?"
"They must be—the sapphires are of a very good colour and the brilliants are large," said Diana, humouring him. "I wonder where it was made?"
"I do not care where it was made," said Marcantonio roughly. "I have got it again. I will give it back to her—she must have missed it." He looked at Diana with a strange pathetic inquiry in his weary eyes.
"Leonora?" asked Diana, in surprise. Marcantonio started as though he had been stung. He had thought of his dead mother.