marked off each stroke with a toss of his head. When the sixth
had struck, he snuffed the candle with his fingers.

Then he began to pace up and down the room, listened at the corridor,
walked on again, then listened once more.

"Provided only that he comes!" he muttered, then he returned to his
chair.

He had hardly reseated himself when the door opened.

Mother Jondrette had opened it, and now remained in the corridor making
a horrible, amiable grimace, which one of the holes of the dark-lantern
illuminated from below.

"Enter, sir," she said.

"Enter, my benefactor," repeated Jondrette, rising hastily.

M. Leblanc made his appearance.

He wore an air of serenity which rendered him singularly venerable.

He laid four louis on the table.

"Monsieur Fabantou," said he, "this is for your rent and your most
pressing necessities. We will attend to the rest hereafter."

"May God requite it to you, my generous benefactor!" said Jondrette.

And rapidly approaching his wife:--

"Dismiss the carriage!"

She slipped out while her husband was lavishing salutes and offering
M. Leblanc a chair. An instant later she returned and whispered in his
ear:--

"'Tis done."

The snow, which had not ceased falling since the morning, was so deep
that the arrival of the fiacre had not been audible, and they did not
now hear its departure.

Meanwhile, M. Leblanc had seated himself.

Jondrette had taken possession of the other chair, facing M. Leblanc.

Now, in order to form an idea of the scene which is to follow, let the
reader picture to himself in his own mind, a cold night, the solitudes
of the Salpetriere covered with snow and white as winding-sheets in
the moonlight, the taper-like lights of the street lanterns which shone
redly here and there along those tragic boulevards, and the long rows
of black elms, not a passer-by for perhaps a quarter of a league around,
the Gorbeau hovel, at its highest pitch of silence, of horror, and of
darkness; in that building, in the midst of those solitudes, in the
midst of that darkness, the vast Jondrette garret lighted by a single
candle, and in that den two men seated at a table, M. Leblanc tranquil,
Jondrette smiling and alarming, the Jondrette woman, the female wolf,
in one corner, and, behind the partition, Marius, invisible, erect, not
losing a word, not missing a single movement, his eye on the watch, and
pistol in hand.

However, Marius experienced only an emotion of ho