“Very easily,” answered Leonardo, with a savage grimace. “Although the book is, or may be, no longer in existence, her brother may be found any day, and he could prove her marriage. I do not care to seek him, and if I did, my poverty restrains me. But she probably knows well that if she dared to marry any of these infatuated nobles, who are ready to throw their coronets at her feet, I should stand forth and denounce her. If I declare her to be my wife, she must disprove my words. I, in my poverty, can do nothing; but a rich man--such as she would desire to wed--could seek for the man who could seal my words as truth.” A thrill of hope ran through the heart of his hearer. For a moment the impulse to tell him the bitter facts of his own share in Lucia’s miserable history almost overmastered Paul Desfrayne’s prudence. But he resolved to make no sign until he had consulted Frank Amberley, to whom he looked now as his chief friend and adviser in his present difficulties. If he could get leave of absence, he meant to go to London for some hours the next day, in order to see the young lawyer. “Perhaps her brother is dead,” he suggested. “Perhaps so,” assented the other. “But she would feel secure if such were the case, and we should soon hear of her as princess, duchess, or some such exalted personage.” “He might die, and make no sign. Missionary priests are sometimes slain in obscure places, or die of hunger on toilsome journeys, and are never heard of more,” Captain Desfrayne said. He knew full well that it was in reality her luckless marriage with himself that fixed the bar. “Sir,” Leonardo said, “I think I have earned the right to ask how this cross--my first gift to her--came from her hands into your possession.” This was a home-thrust. “She fancied I was the rich milord who might one day place a coronet on her brow,” said Paul Desfrayne, very slowly. “I was one of her most ardent admirers at Florence.” “I understand.” “Afterward--some time later--she discovered that I was--that I was not the wealthy nobleman she had imagined me to be,” half-stammered Gilardoni’s master. “That was enough. I comprehend. That was quite enough for her. But if she wished to entrap you, she would have dared to consent to marry you.” “My good fellow, I wish to get to my room,” said the young officer, who felt sick at heart, although a faint gleam of hope had come to him. “It is almost break of dawn.” These last words struck him with a singular sense of being familiar, as if he had uttered them in some previous stage of existence, or had heard some one speak them at some startling crisis. “You must be tired out, sir.” Gilardoni pushed the little cross toward his master without making any remark about it. “I don’t want the thing, Gilardoni,” said Paul Desfrayne, with a half-contemptuous sigh. “It is yours of right, I doubt not. It can have no value for me. I do not know why I have preserved it.”