er, had
alarmed him to the extent of rendering him peremptory. He thought that
he had been traced and followed. Cosette had been obliged to give way.

Both had arrived in the Rue de l'Homme Arme without opening their lips,
and without uttering a word, each being absorbed in his own personal
preoccupation; Jean Valjean so uneasy that he did not notice Cosette's
sadness, Cosette so sad that she did not notice Jean Valjean's
uneasiness.

Jean Valjean had taken Toussaint with him, a thing which he had never
done in his previous absences. He perceived the possibility of not
returning to the Rue Plumet, and he could neither leave Toussaint behind
nor confide his secret to her. Besides, he felt that she was devoted and
trustworthy. Treachery between master and servant begins in curiosity.
Now Toussaint, as though she had been destined to be Jean Valjean's
servant, was not curious. She stammered in her peasant dialect of
Barneville: "I am made so; I do my work; the rest is no affair of mine."

In this departure from the Rue Plumet, which had been almost a flight,
Jean Valjean had carried away nothing but the little embalmed valise,
baptized by Cosette "the inseparable." Full trunks would have required
porters, and porters are witnesses. A fiacre had been summoned to the
door on the Rue de Babylone, and they had taken their departure.

It was with difficulty that Toussaint had obtained permission to pack up
a little linen and clothes and a few toilet articles. Cosette had taken
only her portfolio and her blotting-book.

Jean Valjean, with a view to augmenting the solitude and the mystery of
this departure, had arranged to quit the pavilion of the Rue Plumet only
at dusk, which had allowed Cosette time to write her note to Marius.
They had arrived in the Rue de l'Homme Arme after night had fully
fallen.

They had gone to bed in silence.

The lodgings in the Rue de l'Homme Arme were situated on a back
court, on the second floor, and were composed of two sleeping-rooms, a
dining-room and a kitchen adjoining the dining-room, with a garret
where there was a folding-bed, and which fell to Toussaint's share. The
dining-room was an antechamber as well, and separated the two bedrooms.
The apartment was provided with all necessary utensils.

People re-acquire confidence as foolishly as they lose it; human nature
is so constituted. Hardly had Jean Valjean reached the Rue de l'Homme
Arme when his anxiety was lightened and by degree