He unfolded the paper, and displayed to view a small gold cross, such as are worn as a pendant on the watch-chain. Gilardoni regarded this with an air of the most unqualified amazement, mingled with an expression that seemed to indicate rage and contending sensations of no very agreeable kind. For several moments he remained as if carved in stone, fixedly looking upon the trinket. It was a comparatively inexpensive toy, made of burnished gold, set with blue stones on one side, perfectly plain on the other. “It is impossible,” Gilardoni murmured, at length, raising his eyes, which wore a singularly startled expression. “Oh! it cannot be the same. Why, they make these things by the hundred. How could it be possible that it could come into the possession of Captain Desfrayne? Yet--yet it _must_ be my fatal love-gift.” He abruptly turned the cross, and looked at the nethermost point. Thereon was very inartistically cut or engraved a tiny heart pierced by an arrow. “_Cielo!_” he cried, starting back. “It _is_ the same. Then has it been dropped by the captain, or how has it come here? Am I dreaming? Am I going mad?” He turned slowly, and walked toward the barracks, his head sunk upon his breast, as if he were overwhelmed by painful reflections and memories. “The moment the captain returns, I shall ask him if this was in his possession, and how he came by it. Perhaps Lucia sold or lost it, and it fell into the hands of some dealer, from whom he may have bought it. Yes, that must be so.” Captain Desfrayne would probably not return for a couple of hours. Gilardoni must wait with what patience he could muster. By dint of arguing with himself, he at length almost arrived at the conclusion that during his tour in Italy the captain had purchased the gold cross. That Captain Desfrayne had ever been acquainted with Lucia Guiscardini, he did not for a moment dream. If the thought came into his mind that the cross had been a gift from _la_ Lucia to the young Englishman, he dismissed it as utterly improbable. The sudden finding of the trinket that bore so many mingled recollections with it had made him feel faint and sick from emotion, and as the slow minutes wore away he grew paler and paler. “She wears diamonds now that emperors scarce could buy,” he said to himself, contemplating that tiny love-gift, “yet I doubt if any of the gems that cluster in her jewel-boxes have given her half the rapture of vanity and pleasure that thrilled her false heart when I clasped this little gewgaw about her neck. She pretended she loved me, and returned my kiss--and I had the folly to believe her true. Folly, folly, folly! Some day I may have her at my feet, and then--aye, then----” He clenched his hand with frenzied rage.