were displaced, the rags scattered about, the jug broken, the mother had
been crying, the children had probably been beaten; traces of a vigorous
and ill-tempered search. It was plain that the grave-digger had made
a desperate search for his card, and had made everybody in the garret,
from the jug to his wife, responsible for its loss. He wore an air of
desperation.

But Fauchelevent was in too great a hurry to terminate this adventure to
take any notice of this sad side of his success.

He entered and said:--

"I have brought you back your shovel and pick."

Gribier gazed at him in stupefaction.

"Is it you, peasant?"

"And to-morrow morning you will find your card with the porter of the
cemetery."

And he laid the shovel and mattock on the floor.

"What is the meaning of this?" demanded Gribier.

"The meaning of it is, that you dropped your card out of your pocket,
that I found it on the ground after you were gone, that I have buried
the corpse, that I have filled the grave, that I have done your work,
that the porter will return your card to you, and that you will not have
to pay fifteen francs. There you have it, conscript."

"Thanks, villager!" exclaimed Gribier, radiant. "The next time I will
pay for the drinks."

CHAPTER VIII--A SUCCESSFUL INTERROGATORY

An hour later, in the darkness of night, two men and a child presented
themselves at No. 62 Rue Petit-Picpus. The elder of the men lifted the
knocker and rapped.

They were Fauchelevent, Jean Valjean, and Cosette.

The two old men had gone to fetch Cosette from the fruiterer's in
the Rue du Chemin-Vert, where Fauchelevent had deposited her on the
preceding day. Cosette had passed these twenty-four hours trembling
silently and understanding nothing. She trembled to such a degree that
she wept. She had neither eaten nor slept. The worthy fruit-seller had
plied her with a hundred questions, without obtaining any other reply
than a melancholy and unvarying gaze. Cosette had betrayed nothing of
what she had seen and heard during the last two days. She divined that
they were passing through a crisis. She was deeply conscious that it was
necessary to "be good." Who has not experienced the sovereign power
of those two words, pronounced with a certain accent in the ear of a
terrified little being: Say nothing! Fear is mute. Moreover, no one
guards a secret like a child.

But when, at the expiration of these lugubrious twenty-four hours, she
behe