screws. By the help of his dagger he managed, not without great
difficulty, to unscrew and remove it altogether, carefully laying it
aside and the four screws with it. By midnight he was free, and he
went down the stairs without his shoes to reconnoitre the localities.

He was not a little astonished to find a door wide open which led down
a corridor to several chambers, at the end of which corridor was a
window opening on a depression caused by the junction of the roofs of
the hotel de Poitiers and that of the Malemaison which met there.
Nothing could express his joy, unless it be the vow which he instantly
made to the Blessed Virgin to found a mass in her honor in the
celebrated parish church of the Escrignoles at Tours. After examining
the tall broad chimneys of the hotel de Poitiers he returned upon his
steps to fetch his dagger, when to his horror, he beheld a vivid light
on the staircase and saw Maitre Cornelius himself in his dalmatian,
carrying a lamp, his eyes open to their fullest extent and fixed upon
the corridor, at the entrance of which he stood like a spectre.

"If I open the window and jump upon the roofs, he will hear me,"
thought the young man.

The terrible old miser advanced, like the hour of death to a criminal.
In this extremity Philippe, instigated by love, recovered his presence
of mind; he slipped into a doorway, pressing himself back into the
angle of it, and awaited the old man. When Cornelius, holding his lamp
in advance of him, came into line with the current of air which the
young man could send from his lungs, the lamp was blown out. Cornelius
muttered vague words and swore a Dutch oath; but he turned and
retraced his steps. The young man then rushed to his room, caught up
his dagger and returned to the blessed window, opened it softly and