However it was to Clarice--to Clarice who thus herself destroyed her last chance of happiness--that he owed the precious information which he needed to find his way in the darkness in which he was moving. An hour later he discovered that a letter was fastened to the bouquet. He tore it open and read: “Is it already finished, dearest? No: it cannot be. There is no real reason for my tears surely?... It is impossible that you should have already had enough, of your Clarice? “Darling to-night they are all going away by train; and they will not come back till very late to-morrow. You will come, won’t you? You will not leave me to weep again?” Poor, mournful lines!... Ralph was not softened by them. He considered this journey of which she told him and remembered that accusation of Beaumagnan: “Learning from me that we were soon about to examine from cellar to roof a mansion near Dieppe, she betook herself there hastily----” Was not this the goal of the expedition? And would he not find there an opportunity of joining in the struggle and drawing from it all the advantage that circumstances might offer? That very evening at seven o’clock, dressed like a fisherman from the coast in blue flannel trousers, a thick woolen sweater, and a woolen cap pulled down over his ears, unrecognizable under the layer of ochre which reddened his face, he got into the same train as the Baron d’Etigues and Oscar de Bennetot, like them changed twice, and got out at a little village where he spent the night. Next morning d’Ormont, Rolleville, and Rufus d’Estiers came in a carriage to fetch their two friends. Ralph followed them. At the end of ten kilometers the carriage stopped before a long, dilapidated mansion called the Château de Gueures. When he came to the open gates, Ralph discovered that a whole host of workmen were swarming in the gardens and park, digging up the paths and the lawns, or scraping the basin of a pool which was fed by a small stream of which they had closed the sluice-gates. It was ten o’clock. On the terrace the contractors welcomed the five associates. Ralph entered without being noticed, mingled with the workmen, and questioned them. From them he learned that the château had just been bought by the Marquis de Rolleville and that the work of restoration had begun that morning. “Yes, Monsieur. Instructions have been given that any man who in the course of his digging finds coins, metal objects, copper, iron, and so forth, is to hand them over and he will be rewarded.” It was quite clear that all this turning things upside down had no other object than the discovery of something. Ralph asked himself what they were trying to find. He strolled round the park, made a tour of the mansion, hunting through the cellars with especial care, without discovering anything of a nature to solve the problem, the data of which he did not know. It is all very well to seek but it is necessary to know what you are seeking.