"He will open it for us--even if he find it necessary to break the locket." So the thing went round the room until it came to Loo Barebone.
"I have seen it before," he said.

"I think I remember seeing it long ago--when I was a little child." And he handed it to the old Vicomte de Castel Aunet, whose shaking fingers closed round it in a breathless silence.

He carried it to the table, and some one brought candles.

The Vicomte was very old.

He had learnt clock-making, they said, in prison during the Terror.
"Il n'y a moyen," he whispered to himself.