perpendicular; the other horizontal.”

176

“I see no reason why we should not begin with the sixth hour,” asserted St. Hilary.

“I think we may begin at any one of them with an equal chance of success,” I said hopelessly. “This search of ours is like nothing so much as hunting for twelve needles in twenty thousand haystacks.”

And it turned out that I was right. For several days we made no farther progress. We became so utterly fatigued and weary of looking for we knew not what that we saw nothing. We took to wandering vaguely about the canals and the streets. A restlessness urged us out at all hours in search of these vague landmarks. Every morning after breakfast we set out somewhere. Every evening we returned discouraged. And so a month passed, and we were no nearer to the da Sestos casket.

177

CHAPTER XVIII

Jacqueline and I had not written to each other for nearly three weeks.

When I first returned from Bellagio I had intended to explain the apparent flippancy of my last words to her–that I could write the legend of the da Sestos clock, as well as search for the casket. For Jacqueline was, as I have said, quite ignorant that the casket and the clock were in any way connected.

But I had not done so. Partly because I wished to surprise her with that fact, and partly because success had not crowned our efforts as soon as I had hoped. I regretted that I had not told her everything; and yet each day I put off doing so. And so three weeks passed, and still I had not told her.

The fact is, this search for the casket had in some subtle way raised a barrier between Jacqueline and myself. At first I had entered into the quest with enthusiasm. Jacqueline’s entreaty had given the task a dignity and a certain sacredness. But, gradually, my motive for finding it was lost sight of. The madness of St. Hilary 178had also entered my veins. I became more and more eager for success purely for its own sake, and not for Jacqueline’s. The quest had become almost a mania–just such a restless, haunting, cruel longing as tempts the miner to drag his aching feet one more burning mile for the gold he covets. That Jacqueline had asked me to find the casket for her redeemed the search from folly. But as soon as I cared for the thing itself it became a degrading passion.

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