He was away all day. The next day he went out early. He seemed very busy; but he was in a more cheerful mood than I had yet seen him. That gave me courage to endure the tedium of another twelve hours and dispelled the melancholy impression that cold and silent house produced upon me. In the afternoon I tried to distract my thoughts by going over it; it was very old; some remnants of antiquated furniture, tattered hangings, and several pictures half consumed by rats attracted my attention; but an object even more interesting to me turned my thoughts in another direction. As I entered the room where Leoni had slept, I saw the famous box on the floor; it was open and entirely empty. An enormous weight was lifted from my mind. The unknown dragon confined in that box had taken flight! the terrible destiny which it had seemed to me to forebode no longer weighed upon us!--"Well, well," I said to myself with a smile, "Pandora's box is empty; hope has remained behind for me." As I was about to leave the room, I placed my foot on a small bit of cotton wool which had been left lying on the floor with some crumpled tissue paper. I felt something hard and stooped mechanically to pick it up. My fingers felt the same hard substance through the cotton, and on pulling it apart I found a pin made of several large diamonds, which I at once recognized as belonging to my father, and which I had worn on the evening of the last ball, to fasten a scarf on my shoulder. This incident made such an impression on me that I thought no more of the box or of Leoni's secret. I was conscious of nothing but a vague feeling of uneasiness concerning the jewels I had carried with me in my flight, and to which I had not since given even a thought, supposing that Leoni had sent them back at once. The possibility that that had not been done was horrible to me; and as soon as Leoni returned I asked him ingenuously: "My dear, you didn't forget to send back my father's diamonds after we left Brussels, did you?" Leoni looked at me with a strange expression. He seemed to be trying to read in the lowest depths of my soul. "Why don't you answer?" I said; "what is there so surprising in my question?" "What the devil does it mean?" he replied calmly. "It means that I went into your room to-day, and found this on your floor. Thereupon I feared that, in the excitement of our flight and the confusion of our travels, you might have forgotten to send back the other jewels. For my own part, I hardly reminded you of it; my brain was in such a whirl." As I concluded, I handed him the pin. I spoke so naturally and was so far from dreaming of suspecting him, that he saw it at once; and, taking the pin with the utmost calmness, he said: "_Parbleu_! I don't know what this means. Where did you find it? Are you sure that it belonged to your father and was not left behind here by the people who occupied the house before us?"