My breath came very fast, and I shook so that I had a difficulty to keep my thumbnail in the nick, yet hardly was it opened before exalted expectation gave place to deepest disappointment.
For there lay all the secret of the locket disclosed, and there was no diamond, no, nor any other jewel, and nothing at all except a little piece of folded paper.

Then I felt like a man who has played away all his property and stakes his last crown--heavy-hearted, yet hoping against hope that luck may turn, and that with this piece be may win back all his money.

So it was with me; for I hoped that this paper might have written on it directions for the finding of the jewel, and that I might yet rise from the table a winner.

It was but a frail hope, and quickly dashed; for when I had smoothed the creases and spread out the piece of paper in the candle-light, there was nothing to be seen except a few verses from the Psalms of David.

The paper was yellow, and showed a lattice of folds where it had been pressed into the locket; but the handwriting, though small, was clear and neat, and there was no mistaking a word of what was there set down.