t know her, but you
wish to know her."

This them which had turned into her had something indescribably
significant and bitter about it.

"Well, can you do it?" said Marius.

"You shall have the beautiful lady's address."

There was still a shade in the words "the beautiful lady" which troubled
Marius. He resumed:--

"Never mind, after all, the address of the father and daughter. Their
address, indeed!"

She gazed fixedly at him.

"What will you give me?"

"Anything you like."

"Anything I like?"

"Yes."

"You shall have the address."

She dropped her head; then, with a brusque movement, she pulled to the
door, which closed behind her.

Marius found himself alone.

He dropped into a chair, with his head and both elbows on his bed,
absorbed in thoughts which he could not grasp, and as though a prey to
vertigo. All that had taken place since the morning, the appearance of
the angel, her disappearance, what that creature had just said to him, a
gleam of hope floating in an immense despair,--this was what filled his
brain confusedly.

All at once he was violently aroused from his revery.

He heard the shrill, hard voice of Jondrette utter these words, which
were fraught with a strange interest for him:--

"I tell you that I am sure of it, and that I recognized him."

Of whom was Jondrette speaking? Whom had he recognized? M. Leblanc? The
father of "his Ursule"? What! Did Jondrette know him? Was Marius about
to obtain in this abrupt and unexpected fashion all the information
without which his life was so dark to him? Was he about to learn at last
who it was that he loved, who that young girl was? Who her father
was? Was the dense shadow which enwrapped them on the point of being
dispelled? Was the veil about to be rent? Ah! Heavens!

He bounded rather than climbed upon his commode, and resumed his post
near the little peep-hole in the partition wall.

Again he beheld the interior of Jondrette's hovel.

CHAPTER XII--THE USE MADE OF M. LEBLANC'S FIVE-FRANC PIECE

Nothing in the aspect of the family was altered, except that the wife
and daughters had levied on the package and put on woollen stockings and
jackets. Two new blankets were thrown across the two beds.

Jondrette had evidently just returned. He still had the breathlessness
of out of doors. His daughters were seated on the floor near the
fireplace, the elder engaged in dressing the younger's wounded hand. His
wife had sunk back on