"'Monsieur le comte is absent,'—that is what she told me.
"'But at what time must I return in order to see him?' I asked the woman.
"'I don't know, myself; monsieur le comte goes in and out without saying anything to me, and he won't even allow me to ask him if he will return at night. "That does not concern you!" he told me once, and with such an angry, threatening look, that I vowed I would never ask him another question.'
"That, my poor girl, is what that woman told me."
"He received my letter two days ago!" murmured Bathilde, weeping; "and he has not been here, he has sent me no answer!—Mon Dieu! can it be that what you told me of Comte Léodgard is the truth? Was I simply one of those victims to whom a man does not become attached, only a caprice, only one seduction more?—Oh! if that is true, if I am no longer loved by the man for whom I ruined myself, if he has abandoned me forever—Ambroisine, I shall not have the courage to endure my misery!"
"Yes, you will have that courage," said Ambroisine; "heaven will give it to you; indeed, you will derive it from your very situation. When you think that you are a mother, you will remember what you owe your child—that child whom you love already, although you do not know it yet; but who will make you forget all your troubles, when its little arms try to embrace you, when its mouth calls you by the sweet name of mother, when the sounds of its voice reach your heart."
Bathilde wiped her tears away and looked up at her friend, saying:
"Oh! you are right! one cannot desire death when one is a mother.—I will be brave; for my child's sake, I will try to think only of it."
"But do you think that you must abandon all hope?—No, indeed! I am not easily rebuffed, I tell you! I did not find the count to-day; well, I will go there ten times, a hundred times; and, if necessary, I will pass whole days and nights in front of his house, until I am able to see him and speak to him; and unless he goes in and out like a ghost, or has the power to make himself invisible, I shall end by meeting him. Meanwhile, I say again, patience and courage, and think of your child!"