ette, shall you go?"

Cosette turned toward him her beautiful eyes, all filled with anguish,
and replied in a sort of bewilderment:--

"Where?"

"To England. Shall you go?"

"Why do you say you to me?"

"I ask you whether you will go?"

"What do you expect me to do?" she said, clasping her hands.

"So, you will go?"

"If my father goes."

"So, you will go?"

Cosette took Marius' hand, and pressed it without replying.

"Very well," said Marius, "then I will go elsewhere."

Cosette felt rather than understood the meaning of these words.
She turned so pale that her face shone white through the gloom. She
stammered:--

"What do you mean?"

Marius looked at her, then raised his eyes to heaven, and answered:
"Nothing."

When his eyes fell again, he saw Cosette smiling at him. The smile of a
woman whom one loves possesses a visible radiance, even at night.

"How silly we are! Marius, I have an idea."

"What is it?"

"If we go away, do you go too! I will tell you where! Come and join me
wherever I am."

Marius was now a thoroughly roused man. He had fallen back into reality.
He cried to Cosette:--

"Go away with you! Are you mad? Why, I should have to have money, and I
have none! Go to England? But I am in debt now, I owe, I don't know how
much, more than ten louis to Courfeyrac, one of my friends with whom you
are not acquainted! I have an old hat which is not worth three francs,
I have a coat which lacks buttons in front, my shirt is all ragged, my
elbows are torn, my boots let in the water; for the last six weeks I
have not thought about it, and I have not told you about it. You only
see me at night, and you give me your love; if you were to see me in the
daytime, you would give me a sou! Go to England! Eh! I haven't enough to
pay for a passport!"

He threw himself against a tree which was close at hand, erect, his brow
pressed close to the bark, feeling neither the wood which flayed his
skin, nor the fever which was throbbing in his temples, and there he
stood motionless, on the point of falling, like the statue of despair.

He remained a long time thus. One could remain for eternity in such
abysses. At last he turned round. He heard behind him a faint stifled
noise, which was sweet yet sad.

It was Cosette sobbing.

She had been weeping for more than two hours beside Marius as he
meditated.

He came to her, fell at her knees, and slowly prostrating himself, he
took the tip of her foot wh