Taking advantage of the uncovered grass he climbed the bank and sought the shelter of a thicket where the young trees grew too dense to permit the snow to enter. From here another hazard of flight was manifest, for he could see now that the face of the country outside on the level was spread as with a tablecloth, its white surface undisturbed, ready for the impress of so light an object as a hopping wren. To make his way across it would be to drag his bonds behind him, plainly asking the world to pull him back. Obviously there must be a more tactical retreat, and without more ado he followed the river's course, keeping ever, as he could, in the shelter of the younger woods, where the snow did not lie or was gathered by the wind in alleys and walls. Forgotten was the cold in his hurried flight through the trees; but by-and-by it compelled his attention, and he fell to beating his arms in the shelter of a plantation of yews.
“Mort de ma vie!” he thought while in this occupation, “why should I not have a roquelaire? If his very ungracious Grace refuses to see when a man is dying of cold for want of a coat, shall the man not help himself to a loan? M. le Duc owes Cammercy something for that ride in a glass coach, and for a night of a greatcoat I shall be pleased to discharge the family obligation.”
Count Victor there and then came to a bold decision. He would, perhaps, not only borrow a coat and cover his nakedness, but furthermore cover his flight by the same strategy. The only place in the neighbourhood where he could obscure his footsteps in that white night of stars was in the castle itself—perhaps in the very fosse whence he had made his escape. There the traffic of the day was bound to have left a myriad tracks, amongst which the imprint of a red-heeled Rouen shoe would never advertise itself. But it was too soon yet to risk so bold a venture, for his absence might be at this moment the cause of search round all the castle, and ordinary prudence suggested that he should permit some time to pass before venturing near the dwelling that now was in his view, its lights blurred by haze, no sign apparent that they missed or searched for him.
For an hour or more, therefore, he kept his blood from congelation by walking back and forward in the thicket into which the softly breathing but shrewish night wind penetrated less cruelly than elsewhere, and at last judged the interval enough to warrant his advance upon the enterprise.
Behold then Count Victor running hard across the white level waste of the park into the very boar's den—a comic spectacle, had there been any one to see it, in a dancer's shoes and hose, coatless and excited. He looked over the railing of the fosse to find the old silence undisturbed.
Was his flight discovered yet? If not it was something of a madness, after all, to come back to the jaws of the trap.
“Here's a pretty problem!” he told himself, hesitating upon the brink of the ditch into which dipped a massive stair—“Here's a pretty problem! to have the roquelaire or to fly without it and perish of cold, because there is one chance in twenty that monsieur the warder opposite my chamber may not be wholly a fool and may have looked into his mousetrap. I do not think he has; at all events here are the alternatives, and the wiser is invariably the more unpleasant. Allons! Victor, advienne que pourra, and Heaven help us!”
He ran quickly down the stair into the fosse, crept along in the shelter of the ivy for a little, saw that no one was visible, and darted across and up to a postern in the eastern turret. The door creaked noisily as he entered, and a flight of stairs, dimly lit by candles, presented itself, up which he ventured with his heart in his mouth. On the first landing were two doors, one of them ajar; for a second or two he hesitated with every nerve in his flesh pulsating and his heart tumultuous in his breast; then hearing nothing, took his courage in his hands and blandly entered, with his feet at a fencer's balance for the security of his retreat if that were necessary. There was a fire glowing in the apartment—a tempting spectacle for the shivering refugee, a dim light burned within a glass shade upon the mantel, and a table laden with drug-vials was drawn up to the side of a heavily-curtained bed.
Count Victor compassed the whole at a glance, and not the least pleasant part of the spectacle was the sight of a coat—not a greatcoat, but still a coat—upon the back of a chair that stood between the bed and the fire.
“With a thousand apologies to his Grace,” he whispered to himself, and tiptoed in his soaking shoes across the floor without reflecting for a second that the bed might have an occupant. He examined the coat; it had a familiar look that might have indicated its owner even if there had not been the flageolet lying beside it. Instinctively Count Victor turned about and went up to the bed, where, silently peeping between the curtains, he saw his enemy of the morning so much in a natural slumber as it seemed that he was heartened exceedingly. Only for a moment he looked; there was the certainty of some one returning soon to the room, and accordingly he rapidly thrust himself into the coat and stepped back upon the stair.