You, father,
have not upheld me. Monsieur my father, monsieur my husband, you are
tyrants. I shall go and tell grandpapa. If you think that I am going to
return and talk platitudes to you, you are mistaken. I am proud. I shall
wait for you now. You shall see, that it is you who are going to be
bored without me. I am going, it is well."

And she left the room.

Two seconds later, the door opened once more, her fresh and rosy head
was again thrust between the two leaves, and she cried to them:

"I am very angry indeed."

The door closed again, and the shadows descended once more.

It was as though a ray of sunlight should have suddenly traversed the
night, without itself being conscious of it.

Marius made sure that the door was securely closed.

"Poor Cosette!" he murmured, "when she finds out . . ."

At that word Jean Valjean trembled in every limb. He fixed on Marius a
bewildered eye.

"Cosette! oh yes, it is true, you are going to tell Cosette about this.
That is right. Stay, I had not thought of that. One has the strength for
one thing, but not for another. Sir, I conjure you, I entreat now, sir,
give me your most sacred word of honor, that you will not tell her. Is
it not enough that you should know it? I have been able to say it myself
without being forced to it, I could have told it to the universe, to the
whole world,--it was all one to me. But she, she does not know what
it is, it would terrify her. What, a convict! we should be obliged to
explain matters to her, to say to her: 'He is a man who has been in the
galleys.' She saw the chain-gang pass by one day. Oh! My God!" . . . He
dropped into an arm-chair and hid his face in his hands.

His grief was not audible, but from the quivering of his shoulders it
was evident that he was weeping. Silent tears, terrible tears.

There is something of suffocation in the sob. He was seized with a sort
of convulsion, he threw himself against the back of the chair as though
to gain breath, letting his arms fall, and allowing Marius to see his
face inundated with tears, and Marius heard him murmur, so low that his
voice seemed to issue from fathomless depths:

"Oh! would that I could die!"

"Be at your ease," said Marius, "I will keep your secret for myself
alone." And, less touched, perhaps, than he ought to have been, but
forced, for the last hour, to familiarize himself with something
as unexpected as it was dreadful, gradually beholding the convict
superpo