, and with
which he was accustomed to draw wretches violently to him.

It was this glance which Fantine had felt penetrating to the very marrow
of her bones two months previously.

At Javert's exclamation, Fantine opened her eyes once more. But the
mayor was there; what had she to fear?

Javert advanced to the middle of the room, and cried:--

"See here now! Art thou coming?"

The unhappy woman glanced about her. No one was present excepting the
nun and the mayor. To whom could that abject use of "thou" be addressed?
To her only. She shuddered.

Then she beheld a most unprecedented thing, a thing so unprecedented
that nothing equal to it had appeared to her even in the blackest
deliriums of fever.

She beheld Javert, the police spy, seize the mayor by the collar; she
saw the mayor bow his head. It seemed to her that the world was coming
to an end.

Javert had, in fact, grasped Jean Valjean by the collar.

"Monsieur le Maire!" shrieked Fantine.

Javert burst out laughing with that frightful laugh which displayed all
his gums.

"There is no longer any Monsieur le Maire here!"

Jean Valjean made no attempt to disengage the hand which grasped the
collar of his coat. He said:--

"Javert--"

Javert interrupted him: "Call me Mr. Inspector."

"Monsieur," said Jean Valjean, "I should like to say a word to you in
private."

"Aloud! Say it aloud!" replied Javert; "people are in the habit of
talking aloud to me."

Jean Valjean went on in a lower tone:--

"I have a request to make of you--"

"I tell you to speak loud."

"But you alone should hear it--"

"What difference does that make to me? I shall not listen."

Jean Valjean turned towards him and said very rapidly and in a very low
voice:--

"Grant me three days' grace! three days in which to go and fetch the
child of this unhappy woman. I will pay whatever is necessary. You shall
accompany me if you choose."

"You are making sport of me!" cried Javert. "Come now, I did not think
you such a fool! You ask me to give you three days in which to run away!
You say that it is for the purpose of fetching that creature's child!
Ah! Ah! That's good! That's really capital!"

Fantine was seized with a fit of trembling.

"My child!" she cried, "to go and fetch my child! She is not here,
then! Answer me, sister; where is Cosette? I want my child! Monsieur
Madeleine! Monsieur le Maire!"

Javert stamped his foot.

"And now there's the other one! Will you h