Master Hugonnet came again in the evening to see the poor girl, and said to her with a disappointed air:
"I went to Master Landry's to-day."
"You have seen my father!" cried Bathilde; "well?"
"He received me very coolly, very shortly, in fact; he answered only a few curt words to what I said. His face was dark and careworn."
"Oh! my poor father! it is I who am the cause of his unhappiness!"
"But he did not say a word about you.—As for your mother, when she saw me, she turned her back and disappeared; perhaps she was afraid that I should read her grief in her eyes."
"Oh, no! monsieur, she was afraid that you would mention her daughter's name."
And Bathilde turned away to weep, thinking how sad it was to be an object of shame and misery to those whose existence it was her duty to make glad.
Two days passed, and Bathilde received no news of Léodgard. Each hour, each minute that went seemed a century to the poor girl, whose eyes expressed the anxiety and suffering that were devouring her heart.
When the second day had gone, Ambroisine, realizing her friend's tortures, said to her in the morning, after kissing her: