venture afterwards.

"Good God, Monsieur le Maire," she cried at last, "I thought you were--"

She stopped; the conclusion of her sentence would have been lacking in
respect towards the beginning. Jean Valjean was still Monsieur le Maire
to her.

He finished her thought.

"In prison," said he. "I was there; I broke a bar of one of the windows;
I let myself drop from the top of a roof, and here I am. I am going up
to my room; go and find Sister Simplice for me. She is with that poor
woman, no doubt."

The old woman obeyed in all haste.

He gave her no orders; he was quite sure that she would guard him better
than he should guard himself.

No one ever found out how he had managed to get into the courtyard
without opening the big gates. He had, and always carried about him,
a pass-key which opened a little side-door; but he must have been
searched, and his latch-key must have been taken from him. This point
was never explained.

He ascended the staircase leading to his chamber. On arriving at the
top, he left his candle on the top step of his stairs, opened his door
with very little noise, went and closed his window and his shutters by
feeling, then returned for his candle and re-entered his room.

It was a useful precaution; it will be recollected that his window could
be seen from the street.

He cast a glance about him, at his table, at his chair, at his bed which
had not been disturbed for three days. No trace of the disorder of the
night before last remained. The portress had "done up" his room; only
she had picked out of the ashes and placed neatly on the table the two
iron ends of the cudgel and the forty-sou piece which had been blackened
by the fire.

He took a sheet of paper, on which he wrote: "These are the two tips of
my iron-shod cudgel and the forty-sou piece stolen from Little Gervais,
which I mentioned at the Court of Assizes," and he arranged this piece
of paper, the bits of iron, and the coin in such a way that they were
the first things to be seen on entering the room. From a cupboard he
pulled out one of his old shirts, which he tore in pieces. In the
strips of linen thus prepared he wrapped the two silver candlesticks. He
betrayed neither haste nor agitation; and while he was wrapping up the
Bishop's candlesticks, he nibbled at a piece of black bread. It was
probably the prison-bread which he had carried with him in his flight.

This was proved by the crumbs which were found on the floo