This time Patrice was determined to do the deed. His eyes expressed an indomitable resolution. His father's murderer, Coralie's murderer, must die then and there. His duty was clear and precise. The terrible Essarès was doomed to die by the hand of the son and the bridegroom. "Say your prayers," said Patrice, coldly. "In ten seconds you will be a dead man." He counted out the seconds and, at the tenth, was about to fire, when his enemy, in an access of mad energy proving that, under the outward appearance of old Siméon, there was hidden a man still young and vigorous, shouted with a violence so extraordinary that it made Patrice hesitate: "Very well, kill me! . . . Yes, let it be finished! . . . I am beaten: I accept defeat. But it is a victory all the same, because Coralie is dead and my gold is saved! . . . I shall die, but nobody shall have either one or the other, the woman whom I love or the gold that was my life. Ah, Patrice, Patrice, the woman whom we both loved to distraction is no longer alive . . . or else she is dying without a possibility of saving her now. If I cannot have her, you shall not have her either, Patrice. My revenge has done its work. Coralie is lost!" He had recovered a fierce energy and was shouting and stammering at the same time. Patrice stood opposite him, holding him covered with the revolver, ready to act, but still waiting to hear the terrible words that tortured him. "She is lost, Patrice!" Siméon continued, raising his voice still louder. "Lost! There's nothing to be done! And you will not find even her body in the bowels of the earth, where I buried her with the bags of gold. Under the tombstone? No, not such a fool! No, Patrice, you will never find her. The gold is stifling her. She's dead! Coralie is dead! Oh, the delight of throwing that in your face! The anguish you must be feeling! Coralie is dead! Coralie is dead!" "Don't shout so, you'll wake her," said Don Luis, calmly. The brief sentence was followed by a sort of stupor which paralyzed the two adversaries. Patrice's arms dropped to his sides. Siméon turned giddy and sank into a chair. Both of them, knowing the things of which Don Luis was capable, knew what he meant. But Patrice wanted something more than a vague sentence that might just as easily be taken as a jest. He wanted a certainty. "Wake her?" he asked, in a broken voice. "Well, of course!" said Don Luis. "When you shout too loud, you wake people up." "Then she's alive?" "You can't wake the dead, whatever people may say. You can only wake the living." "Coralie is alive! Coralie is alive!" Patrice repeated, in a sort of rapture that transfigured his features. "Can it be possible? But then she must be here! Oh, I beg of you, say you're in earnest, give me your word! . . . Or no, it's not true, is it? I can't believe it . . . you must be joking. . . ."