much courage as Miretta, that I would not dare to go out alone so late, especially as they say that this Giovanni is horrible to look at. It seems that his head is all covered with bristling black hair like a wild beast, and that he has a beard that reaches to his breast.--He must be a frightful creature, mustn't he?" Bathilde, who had ceased to listen when her friend no longer spoke of Léodgard, answered with a sigh: "Look you, Ambroisine, I have been reflecting. You must not burn his letter; I prefer to keep it, because it is a proof--because it shows that men tell us things that they don't mean! Oh, no! you must not burn it, but you must give it back to me, after a while, when I can read it without danger, you know!" Ambroisine shrugged her shoulders; and finding that it was useless to try to divert Bathilde's thoughts, she decided to leave her. "Very well," she said; "I will not burn that wicked letter, since you wish to treasure it!--Adieu! you no longer listen to my words of consolation, but I trust that time will have more power than I have." And the _belle baigneuse_ took her leave. It was midnight; the hour which it is said that lovers and burglars select for their enterprises. Everything was quiet in Landry's house; it was the hour of repose. But one does not sleep at eighteen, when one's heart is torn by the torments and pangs of love. Bathilde was in her room; she had risen because it was impossible for her to find rest on her solitary couch; she opened her window, which looked on the yard, and after standing there for a moment left it because there was no air; only that which came from the street could do her any good. Suddenly the girl remembered her rosebush, which she had neglected for a week; she thought that it must be dying for lack of water, or that it must at least be very sickly; and taking her lamp, which was still burning on the table, she softly opened her door and went to the linen closet, delighted to have found a pretext for going out on the balcony. Bathilde placed her lamp in a corner, then opened the window without noise, and in a moment was on the balcony, beside the rosebush. But instead of examining the plant, she gazed into the darkness that surrounded her. The street was dark and seemed entirely deserted. Now and then she could hear shouts in the distance and shrill whistles that seemed to answer one another--signals far from reassuring to the belated bourgeois, who quickened his pace as he hurried homeward preceded by a hired torchbearer. At other moments the silence of the night was disturbed by the songs of students and pages, assembled to make an uproar and break windows. But these lasted only an instant, then everything became quiet once more.