light, seated on a stool, in a little garret from which so many of his
predecessors had gone to the scaffold, the young fellow felt like a
wild beast caught in a trap. He jumped upon the stool and raised
himself to his full height in order to reach one of the little
openings through which a faint light shone. Thence he saw the Loire,
the beautiful slopes of Saint-Cyr, the gloomy marvels of Plessis,
where lights were gleaming in the deep recesses of a few windows. Far
in the distance lay the beautiful meadows of Touraine and the silvery
stream of her river. Every point of this lovely nature had, at that
moment, a mysterious grace; the windows, the waters, the roofs of the
houses shone like diamonds in the trembling light of the moon. The
soul of the young seigneur could not repress a sad and tender emotion.

"Suppose it is my last farewell!" he said to himself.

He stood there, feeling already the terrible emotions his adventure
offered him, and yielding to the fears of a prisoner who,
nevertheless, retains some glimmer of hope. His mistress illumined
each difficulty. To him she was no longer a woman, but a supernatural
being seen through the incense of his desires. A feeble cry, which he
fancied came from the hotel de Poitiers, restored him to himself and
to a sense of his true situation. Throwing himself on his pallet to
reflect on his course, he heard a slight movement which echoed faintly
from the spiral staircase. He listened attentively, and the whispered
words, "He has gone to bed," said by the old woman, reached his ear.
By an accident unknown probably to the architect, the slightest noise
on the staircase sounded in the room of the apprentices, so that
Philippe did not lose a single movement of the miser and his sister
who were watching him. He undressed, lay down, pretended to sleep, and
employed the time during which the pair remained on the staircase, in