"Don't be afraid," said Patrice. "You can keep it. To-morrow, Siméon, to-morrow, Coralie and I will be faithful to the appointment which you gave us. And to-morrow perhaps the memory of the horrible past will unseal your brain." The day seemed long to Patrice, who was eager for something that would provide a glimmer in the surrounding darkness. And now this glimmer seemed about to be kindled by the arrival of this twentieth anniversary of the fourteenth of April. At a late hour in the afternoon M. Masseron called at the Rue Raynouard. "Look what I've just received," he said to Patrice. "It's rather curious: an anonymous letter in a disguised hand. Listen: "'_Sir_, be warned. They're going away. Take care. To-morrow evening the 1800 bags will be on their way out of the country. A FRIEND OF FRANCE.'" "And to-morrow is the fourteenth of April," said Patrice, at once connecting the two trains of thought in his mind. "Yes. What makes you say that?" "Nothing. . . . Something that just occurred to me. . . ." He was nearly telling M. Masseron all the facts associated with the fourteenth of April and all those concerning the strange personality of old Siméon. If he did not speak, it was for obscure reasons, perhaps because he wished to work out this part of the case alone, perhaps also because of a sort of shyness which prevented him from admitting M. Masseron into all the secrets of the past. He said nothing about it, therefore, and asked: "What do you think of the letter?" "Upon my word, I don't know what to think. It may be a warning with something to back it, or it may be a trick to make us adopt one course of conduct rather than another. I'll talk about it to Bournef." "Nothing fresh on his side?" "No; and I don't expect anything in particular. The alibi which he has submitted is genuine. His friends and he are so many supers. Their parts are played." The coincidence of dates was all that stuck in Patrice's mind. The two roads which M. Masseron and he were following suddenly met on this day so long since marked out by fate. The past and the present were about to unite. The catastrophe was at hand. The fourteenth of April was the day on which the gold was to disappear for good and also the day on which an unknown voice had summoned Patrice and Coralie to the same tryst which his father and her mother had kept twenty years ago. And the next day was the fourteenth of April. * * * * * At nine o'clock in the morning Patrice asked after old Siméon. "Gone out, sir. You had countermanded your orders." Patrice entered the room and looked for the wreath. It was not there. Moreover, the three things in the cupboard, the rope-ladder, the coil of lead and the glazier's lamp, were not there either. "Did Siméon take anything with him?" "Yes, sir, a wreath." "Nothing else?" "No, sir."