Perhaps Bathilde had also her projects for the moment when her neighbor should reappear, perhaps she had arranged a defense which should consist in not looking toward him, or in closing her window after a simple recognition; but at the noise her neighbor's window made in opening, all was forgotten, and she ran to the window, crying out:
"Ah! there you are. Mon Dieu! monsieur, how anxious you have made me!"
This exclamation was ten times more than D'Harmental had hoped for. If he, on his part, had prepared some well-turned and eloquent phrases, they were all forgotten, and clasping his hands:
"Bathilde! Bathilde!" he cried, "you are, then, as good as you are beautiful!"
"Why good?" asked Bathilde. "Did you not tell me that if I was an orphan, you also were without parents? Did you not say that I was your sister, and you were my brother?"
"Then, Bathilde, you prayed for me?"
"All night," replied the young girl blushing.
"And I thanked chance for having saved me, when I owed all to an angel's prayers!"
"The danger is then past?" cried Bathilde.
"The night was dark and gloomy," replied D'Harmental. "This morning, however, I was awakened by a ray of sunshine which a cloud may again conceal: so it is with the danger I have run; it has passed to give place to a great happiness—that of knowing you have thought of me, yet it may return. But stay," continued he, hearing steps on the staircase, "there it is, perhaps, approaching my door."