“Oh,” said Coralie, “you were wrong, Patrice! He will take his revenge on us. . . .”
“No, perhaps not,” said Patrice, still holding his revolver. “I may very well have hit him. The bullet struck the frame of the skylight. But it may have glanced off, in which case . . .”
They waited hand in hand, with a gleam of hope, which did not last long, however.
The noise on the roof began again. And then, as before—and this they really had the impression of not seeing for the first time—as before, something passed through the opening, something that came down, that unrolled itself in the middle of the room, a ladder, a rope-ladder, the very one which Patrice had seen in old Siméon’s cupboard.
As before, they looked at it; and they knew so well that everything was being done over again, that the facts were inexorably, pitilessly linked together, they were so certain of it that their eyes at once sought the sheet of paper which must inevitably be pinned to the bottom rung.
It was there, forming a little scroll, dry and discolored and torn at the edges. It was the sheet of twenty years ago, written by Essarès and now serving, as before, to convey the same temptation and the same threat:
“Send Coralie up by herself. Her life shall be saved. I give her ten minutes to accept. If not . . .”
CHAPTER XIII
THE NAILS IN THE COFFIN
“If not . . .”