She had sunk into a chair. He, almost on his knees beside her, threw his arms around her, imploring her pardon.
She smiled, to calm him:
“Come, dear,” she said, gently, “don’t lose courage. Perhaps we are mistaken. . . . After all, there’s nothing to show that it is not all an accident.”
“The date!” he said. “The date of this year, of this day, written in another hand! It was your mother and my father who wrote the first . . . but this one, Coralie, this one proves premeditation, and an implacable determination to do away with us.”
She shuddered. Still she persisted in trying to comfort him:
“It may be. But yet it is not so bad as all that. We have enemies, but we have friends also. They will look for us.”
“They will look for us, but how can they ever find us, Coralie? We took steps to prevent them from guessing where we were going; and not one of them knows this house.”
“Old Siméon does.”
“Siméon came and placed his wreath, but some one else came with him, some one who rules him and who has perhaps already got rid of him, now that Siméon has played his part.”
“And what then, Patrice?”