y have been a more
unexpected phenomenon to me than what occurred on that memorable
night.

The incident I am going to relate showed me how rash it is to suppose
that you have really fathomed the personality of any human creature.
The mementos of his first wife, which accompanied him whithersoever
he went, absorbed his attention in Switzerland, and especially in the
little place where she was born, far more than they had done at home.
He was for ever peeping furtively into his escritoire to enjoy the
sight of them, and then looking over his shoulder to see if he was
being watched by my mother, though she was far away in Raxton Hall.
On the night in question he showed me the silver casket containing
certain of these mementos--mementos which I felt to be almost too
intimate to be shown even to his son.

'And now, Henry,' said he, 'I am going to show you something that no
one else has ever seen since she died--the most sacred possession I
have upon this earth.' He then opened his shirt and his vest, and
showed me lying upon his naked bosom a beautiful jewelled cross of a
considerable size. 'This,' said he, lifting it up, 'is an ancient
Gnostic amulet. It is called the "Moonlight Cross" of the Gnostics. I
gave it to her on the night of our betrothal. She was a Roman
Catholic. It is made of precious stones cut in facets, with rubies
and diamonds and beryls so cunningly set that, when the moonlight
falls on them, the cross flashes almost as brilliantly as when the
sunlight falls on them and is kindled into living fire. These
deep-coloured crimson rubies--almost as clear as diamonds--are not of
the ordinary kind. They are true "Oriental rubies," and the jewellers
would tell you that the mine which produced them has been lost during
several centuries. But look here when I lift it up; the most
wonderful feature of the jewel is the skill with which the diamonds
are cut. The only shapes generally known are what are called the
"brilliant" and the "rose," but here the facets are arranged in an
entirely different way, and evidently with the view of throwing light
into the very hearts of the rubies, and producing this peculiar
radiance.'

He lifted the amulet again (which was suspended from his neck by a
beautifully worked cord made of soft brown hair) into the rays from
the moon. The light the jewel emitted was certainly of a strange and
fascinating kind. The cross had been worn with the jewelled front
upon his bosom instead of