e; upon which the porter thanked him, and assured him
that he was perfectly welcome to come home at any time he liked, or even
not to return at all.

On returning to his room, D'Harmental saw that his neighbor's was
lighted up; he placed his candle behind a piece of furniture, and
approached the window, so that, as much as the muslin curtains allowed,
he could see into her room, while she could not see into his.

She was seated near a table, drawing, probably, on a card which she held
on her knees, for he saw her profile standing out black against the
light behind her. Shortly another shadow, which the chevalier recognized
as that of the good man of the terrace, passed twice between the light
and the window. At last the shade approached the young girl, she offered
her forehead, the shadow imprinted a kiss on it, and went away, with his
candle in his hand. Directly afterward the windows of the fifth story
were lighted up. All these little circumstances spoke a language which
it was impossible not to understand. The man of the terrace was not the
husband of Bathilde, he must be her father.

D'Harmental, without knowing why, felt overjoyed at this discovery; he
opened his window as softly as he could, and leaned on the bar, which
served him as a support, with his eyes fixed on the shadow. He fell into
the same reverie out of which he had been startled that morning by the
grotesque apparition of his neighbor. In about an hour the girl rose,
put down her card and crayons on the table, advanced toward the alcove,
knelt on a chair before the second window, and offered up her prayers.
D'Harmental understood that her laborious watch was finished, but
remembering the curiosity of his beautiful neighbor, when he had begun
to play the first time, he wished to see if he could prolong that watch,
and he sat down to his spinet. What he had foreseen happened; at the
first notes which reached her, the young girl, not knowing that from the
position of the light he could see her shadow through the curtains,
approached the window on tiptoe, and thinking herself hidden, she
listened to the melodious instrument, which, like the nightingale, awoke
to sing in the middle of the night.

The concert would have probably continued thus for some hours, for
D'Harmental, encouraged by the result produced, felt an energy and an
ease of execution such as he had never known before. Unluckily, the
occupier of the third floor was undoubtedly some clown,