The young seigneur whom we left in front of that house looked about him, first at the hotel de Poitiers, the home of his mistress, and then at the evil house.  The moonbeams were creeping round their angles, and tinting with a mixture of light and shade the hollows and reliefs of the carvings.  The caprices of this white light gave a sinister expression to both edifices; it seemed as if Nature herself encouraged the superstitions that hung about the miser’s dwelling.  The young man called to mind the many traditions which made Cornelius a personage both curious and formidable.  Though quite decided through the violence of his love to enter that house, and stay there long enough to accomplish his design, he hesitated to take the final step, all the while aware that he should certainly take it.  But where is the man who, in a crisis of his life, does not willingly listen to presentiments as he hangs above the precipice?  A lover worthy of being loved, the young man feared to die before he had been received for love’s sake by the countess.

This mental deliberation was so painfully interesting that he did not feel the cold wind as it whistled round the corner of the building, and chilled his legs.  On entering that house, he must lay aside his name, as already he had laid aside the handsome garments of nobility.  In case of mishap, he could not claim the privileges of his rank nor the protection of his friends without bringing hopeless ruin on the Comtesse de Saint-Vallier.  If her husband suspected the nocturnal visit of a lover, he was capable of roasting her alive in an iron cage, or of killing her by degrees in the dungeons of a fortified castle.  Looking down at the shabby clothing in which he had disguised himself, the young nobleman felt ashamed.  His black leather belt, his stout shoes, his ribbed socks, his linsey-woolsey breeches, and his gray woollen doublet made him look like the clerk of some poverty-stricken justice.  To a noble of the fifteenth century it was like death itself to play the part of a beggarly burgher, and renounce the privileges of his rank.  But—­to climb the roof of the house where his mistress wept; to descend the chimney, or creep along from gutter to gutter to the window of her room; to risk his life to kneel beside her on a silken cushion before a glowing fire, during the sleep of a dangerous husband, whose snores would double their joy; to defy both heaven and earth in snatching the boldest of all kisses; to say no word that would not lead to death or at least to sanguinary combat if overheard,—­all these voluptuous images and romantic dangers decided the young man.  However slight might be the guerdon of his enterprise, could he only kiss once more the hand of his lady, he still resolved to venture all, impelled by the chivalrous and passionate spirit of those days.  He never supposed for a moment that the countess would refuse him the soft happiness of love in the midst of such mortal danger.  The adventure was too perilous, too impossible not to be attempted and carried out.