a feminine instinct murmured confusedly, at the bottom of her
heart, that she must not seem to set store on the Luxembourg garden, and
that if this proved to be a matter of indifference to her, her father
would take her thither once more. But days, weeks, months, elapsed. Jean
Valjean had tacitly accepted Cosette's tacit consent. She regretted it.
It was too late. So Marius had disappeared; all was over. The day on
which she returned to the Luxembourg, Marius was no longer there. What
was to be done? Should she ever find him again? She felt an anguish at
her heart, which nothing relieved, and which augmented every day; she no
longer knew whether it was winter or summer, whether it was raining or
shining, whether the birds were singing, whether it was the season for
dahlias or daisies, whether the Luxembourg was more charming than
the Tuileries, whether the linen which the laundress brought home
was starched too much or not enough, whether Toussaint had done "her
marketing" well or ill; and she remained dejected, absorbed, attentive
to but a single thought, her eyes vague and staring as when one gazes by
night at a black and fathomless spot where an apparition has vanished.

However, she did not allow Jean Valjean to perceive anything of this,
except her pallor.

She still wore her sweet face for him.

This pallor sufficed but too thoroughly to trouble Jean Valjean.
Sometimes he asked her:--

"What is the matter with you?"

She replied: "There is nothing the matter with me."

And after a silence, when she divined that he was sad also, she would
add:--

"And you, father--is there anything wrong with you?"

"With me? Nothing," said he.

These two beings who had loved each other so exclusively, and with so
touching an affection, and who had lived so long for each other
now suffered side by side, each on the other's account; without
acknowledging it to each other, without anger towards each other, and
with a smile.

CHAPTER VIII--THE CHAIN-GANG

Jean Valjean was the more unhappy of the two. Youth, even in its
sorrows, always possesses its own peculiar radiance.

At times, Jean Valjean suffered so greatly that he became puerile. It is
the property of grief to cause the childish side of man to reappear. He
had an unconquerable conviction that Cosette was escaping from him. He
would have liked to resist, to retain her, to arouse her enthusiasm by
some external and brilliant matter. These ideas, puerile, as