"What! she will allow her rosebush to die, for fear of seeing me!" said Léodgard to himself. "She must be terribly afraid of me, then! Ah! when a woman is so afraid of a man, it is a good sign; she does not fear those who are indifferent to her. But I will stake my head that Ambroisine has been to see her, that it was she who urged her not to show herself any more. How do I know that Bathilde, without letting herself be seen, is not hidden somewhere, at some other window, whence she watches what I do, and says to herself: 'He is still thinking of me!'--If I thought that!--However, I will try this method: I will force myself to stay away for several days, to avoid passing through this street; she will believe that I have ceased to think of her; and perhaps her vexation, or her confidence, will serve me better than this fruitless watching." Thereupon our lover wrapped himself in his cloak, pulled his hat over his eyes, and, with the air of a man who has suddenly decided upon a course of action, he walked rapidly away and disappeared, without once turning his head. Léodgard had read only too well Bathilde's guileless heart, that heart which longed to love, and which found happiness even in the pangs which that sentiment already caused it to feel. The girl had kept the promise she had made her friend; she had not returned to the room with the balcony; but adjoining that room, and, like it, at the front of the house, there was another, occupied by Master Landry and his wife. Since Dame Ragonde had been away, that room had been deserted throughout the day; for the old soldier went down early to his baths, and did not go up to his room again until bedtime. On the day following Ambroisine's visit, Bathilde remembered that her father had given her an old jacket to mend; the work was not at all urgent, but Bathilde hastened to do it so that she might have an excuse for going to her parents' bedroom. She went there to return the garment belonging to her father; and once she was in that room, which looked on the street, but had no balcony at the windows--because the architects of those days did not make a point of regularity in their buildings--once there, Bathilde could not resist the temptation to go to one of the windows; and, while she pretended to adjust a curtain which presumably did not fall gracefully, she allowed her glance to wander into the street, where she instantly espied the man she had promised to forget. This first step once taken, Bathilde found other excuses for going every day to her father's chamber, where, by putting the curtain aside the least bit in the world, she could look into the street--the eye requires such a narrow space to see so many things! To excuse herself to her own conscience, Bathilde reasoned thus: