"So this last of the Châteaubruns has a daughter, has he?" asked the young man, pausing to look at the manor with more interest than he had yet shown. "And she lives there?"
"Yes, yes, she lives there among the gerfalcons and screech-owls, and yet she is young and pretty, all the same. There's no lack of air and water here, and in spite of the new laws against free hunting, we still see hares and partridges now and then on the lord of Châteaubrun's table. Look you, if you have no business that compels you to risk your life to arrive before daybreak, come with me; I will undertake to procure you a warm welcome at the château. Even if you should arrive there alone, without recommendation, it's enough that the weather is bad and that you have the face of a Christian, to ensure your being well received and well treated at Monsieur Antoine de Châteaubrun's."
"But this gentleman is poor, it seems, and I am reluctant to impose on his goodness of heart."
"On the contrary, you will gratify him. Come, the storm, you see, is going to begin again with more violence than before, and my conscience would trouble me if I should leave you thus all alone on the mountain. You mustn't bear me ill-will because I refused my services. I have my reasons, which you could not judge fairly, and which there is no need of my telling you; but I shall sleep better if you follow my advice. Besides, I know Monsieur Antoine; he would be angry with me for not holding fast to you and taking you to his house; he would be quite capable of running after you, which would be a bad thing for him after supper."
"And you don't think that his daughter would be displeased to have a stranger arrive thus unexpectedly?"
"His daughter is his daughter; that is to say, she is as good as he is, if not better, although that seems hardly possible."
The young man hesitated some time longer, but, drawn on by a romantic attraction, and already drawing in his imagination the portrait of the pearl of beauty he was about to find behind those frowning walls, he said to himself that he was not expected at Gargilesse until the following day; that by arriving at midnight he should disturb his parents in their sleep; and, lastly, that it would be downright imprudence to persist in his plan, and that his mother would certainly dissuade him from it, if she could see him at that moment. Moved by all the excellent reasons which a man gives himself when the demon of youth and curiosity takes a hand, he followed his guide in the direction of the old château.
II
THE MANOR OF CHÂTEAUBRUN
After climbing with difficulty a very steep road, or rather a stairway cut in the rock, our travellers reached the entrance of Châteaubrun in about twenty minutes. The wind and the rain redoubled in violence, and the young man hardly had leisure to observe the huge portal, which offered to his sight, at that moment, nothing more than an ill-defined mass of formidable proportions. He noticed simply that the seignorial portcullis was replaced by a wooden fence like those which enclose all the fields in the province.