Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/52

38 !... Why, it is the Golden Sun bracelet! It is, really! The bracelet of the Bride of the Sun!"

Every person in the room had risen, with the exception of the two old ladies, who sat as if stunned. All eyes were turned on the heavy bracelet in darkened old gold, with its sun-adorned center plaque on which the rays seemed blurred out by the dust of centuries.

"Well, that is funny!" laughed Maria-Teresa.

"Of course!" exclaimed the Marquis, whose voice had changed a little. "Evidently a joke by Alonso de Cuelar. You refused him, my dear, and he has invented rather a pretty revenge. His little vengeance on the Bride of the Sun... . All the young men of the town call you that because you refuse to marry.... Well, what are we looking so blue about over there? Surely, Agnes, you are not going to make yourself ill over a harmless joke like this?"

Maria-Teresa was showing the bracelet to Uncle Francis and Dick.

"Father!" she exclaimed. "I think I shall keep it! Tell Don Alonso I shall wear it as a token of friendship.... It really is a beauty!... What do you think of it, Mr. Montgomery?"

"It seems to me at least three or four hundred years old."