His hand was on the pistol--the lock clicked sharp and true up to the cock--one touch of the trigger, and where would Gaston D’Orville have been?--when his eye chanced to light upon the seal of Mary’s letter. It was a casual seal, accidentally selected from a number of others, but the device was somewhat uncommon, and now struck D’Orville with a strange, painful distinctness that surprised him. It was but an eye, surrounded by an obliterated motto; yet it served for an instant to divert his attention; and--on such trifles turns the destiny of man--he laid down the pistol, and took up the letter to examine it more closely. The eye seemed to fascinate him. Turn which way he would, that eye seemed to watch him; steadily, unremittingly, an eye that never closes or slumbers seemed to be above him, around him, all about him; he rose from his chair, and still the eye followed him; he walked to the window, and the eye watched him steadily from out the blue summer sky. A trumpet-note pealed from the rear of the building; it was one of those merry stable-calls so dear to every cavalry soldier’s heart. The familiar strain brought D’Orville to himself; the tension of his brain relaxed. As the excitement subsided, the visionary disappeared, and the real resumed its sway over strong nerves and a powerful intellect. Mechanically he put the pistols away, and carefully locked them in their case. Still the eye seemed to be watching him; and a vague feeling of shame began to take possession of him, as the suspicion rose in his mind that there was _cowardice_ at the bottom of the resolution which he had made, as he thought so boldly, a few minutes ago.