The young man soon entered her room, after noticing with amazement that the Piccinino's light body had left little more impression on his bed than if he had been a spectre. He found little Mila still up, and reproved her for her wilful sleeplessness. But she explained her reasons for anxiety; and, without mentioning Magnani, for the princess had enjoined upon her not to let Michel know of his presence, she told him of the Piccinino's strange and impudent visit to her room. She also told him something of her experience with the monk, and made him promise that he would not leave her during the morning, and that, if he were summoned by the princess later in the day, he would not go out without letting her know, because she was determined to seek shelter with some friend and not remain alone in the house. Michel readily agreed. He was utterly unable to understand the bandit's conduct on that occasion. But we can imagine that such an audacious performance, taken in connection with the impertinence of the pretended monk, left him in a decidedly uncomfortable frame of mind. When he returned to his chamber, after barricading the door of the gallery with his own hands in order to protect his sister against any fresh attack, he looked about for the cyclamen upon which he had gazed so sorrowfully as he sat beside his table. But the cyclamen had disappeared. The Piccinino had noticed that the princess, as on the evening of the ball, had a bouquet of cyclamen in her hand or close at hand, and that she seemed to have contracted the habit of playing with that bouquet even more than with her fan, the inseparable companion of all the women of the South. He had also noticed that Michel treasured one of those flowers, and that he had drawn it toward his face several times, then hastily pushed it away, during the first agitated moments of his vigil. He had divined the mysterious charm attached to that plant, and before leaving the room he had maliciously taken it from the glass upon which Michel's inert hand still rested. He threw the little flower into the sheath of his dagger, saying to himself: "If I stab anyone to-day, perhaps this memento of the lady of my thoughts will remain in the wound." Michel tried to follow the Piccinino's example, that is to say, to recover his lucidity of thought by enjoying an hour or two of real sleep. He had insisted that Mila should go to bed, and, in order to make surer that she was adequately guarded, he left the door open between their rooms. He slept heavily, as young men of his age do, but his sleep was disturbed by confused and distressing dreams, an inevitable consequence of his present position. When he woke, shortly after daylight, he tried to collect his thoughts, and first of all he looked to see if he had not dreamed of the abstraction of the precious cyclamen. His surprise was unbounded when he saw that the glass, empty when he fell asleep, was filled with freshly gathered cyclamens.