"Eh! what have we here?" said the earl, motioning the bearer to lay down his burden.
He removed the cloth, and all crowded round to admire the richness and beauty of the object thus revealed to view. It was a chest of black wood bound at the corners with silver. The lid and sides were divided into compartments, carved with alto-relievos of a decidedly ecclesiastical character.
"This is a very fine work of art," said Lord Ormsby, who was somewhat of an authority on antiquities. Putting on his pince-nez he stooped to examine the chest more closely. "French, I should judge, of the fourteenth century. What wood is it?"
"Cypress."
Godfrey did not fail to notice Ivar's somewhat sullen intonation.
"And the cypress," remarked the earl, "is the emblem of death. This chest is evidently one of those shrines in which mediæval folk put the relics of their saints."
"Yes, it is a reliquary."
"How did you become its possessor?"
"I bought it from the sacristan of an old church in Brittany. Whence he obtained it is perhaps easy to guess. Naturally I refrained from questioning him too closely."