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And with his two fists in the two pockets of his trousers, he stood a moment in thought, then exclaimed:

“Do you know that it is very lucky indeed that he did not recognise me? If he had been the one to recognise me he would not have come back. He would escape us! It is my beard that saved me! my romantic goatee! my pretty little romantic beard!”

And he began to laugh again.

He went to the window. The snow was still falling, and blotted out the grey sky.

“What villainous weather!” said he.

Then folding his coat:

“The skin is too large. It doesn’t matter,” added he, “he did devilish well to leave it for me, the old scoundrel! Without this I should not have been able to go out and the whole thing would have been spoiled! But on what do things hang!”

And pulling his cap over his eyes, he went out.

Hardly had he had time to take a few steps in the hall, when the door opened and his tawny and cunning face again appeared.

“I forgot,” said he. “You will have a charcoal fire.”

And he threw into his wife’s apron the five-franc coin which the “philanthropist” had left him.

“A charcoal fire?” asked the woman.

“Yes.”

“How many bushels?”

“Two good ones.”

“That will be thirty sous. With the rest, I will buy something for dinner.”

“The devil, no.”

“Why?”

“The coin of a hundred sous is not to be spent.”

“Why?”

“Because I shall have something to buy.”

“What?”

“Something.”

“How much will you need?”

“Where is there a hardware store near here?”

“Rue Mouffetard.”

“Oh! yes, at the corner of some street; I remember the shop.”

“But tell me now how much you will need for what you have to buy?”

“Fifty sous or three francs.”

“There won’t be much left for dinner.”

“Don’t bother about eating to-day. There is better business.”

“All right, my jewel.”

At this word from his wife, Jondrette closed the door, and Marius heard his steps recede along the hall and go rapidly down the stairs.

Just then the clock of Saint Médard struck one.

12 (13)

SOLUS CUM SOLO, IN LOCO REMOTO, NON COGITABANTUR ORARE PATER NOSTERdv

MARIUS, all dreamer as he was, was, as we have said, of a firm and energetic nature. His habits of solitary meditation, while developing sympathy and compassion in him, had perhaps diminished his liability to become irritated, but left intact the faculty of indignation; he had the benevolence of a brahmin and the severity of a judge; he would have pitied a toad, but he would have crushed a viper. Now it was into a viper’s hole that he had just been looking; it was a nest of monsters that he had before his eyes.

“I must put my foot on these wretches,” said he.

None of the enigmas which he hoped to see unriddled were yet cleared up; on the contrary, all had perhaps become still darker; he knew nothing more of the beautiful child of the Luxembourg Gardens or of the man whom he called M. Leblanc, except that Jondrette knew them. Across the dark words which had been uttered, he saw distinctly but one thing, that an ambush was in the works, obscure, but terrible; that they were both running a great risk, she probably, her father certainly; that he must foil the hideous schemes of the Jondrettes and break the web of these spiders.

He looked for a moment at the female Jondrette. She had pulled an old sheet-iron furnace out of a corner and she was fumbling among the old scraps of iron.

He got down from the bureau as quietly as he could, taking care to make no noise.

In the midst of his dread at what was in preparation, and the horror with which the Jondrettes had inspired him, he felt a sort of joy at the idea that it would perhaps be given to him to render so great a service to her whom he loved.

But what was he to do? warn the persons threatened? where should he find them? He did not know their address. They had reappeared to his eyes for an instant, then they had again plunged into the boundless depths of Paris. Wait at the door for M. Leblanc at six o‘clock in the evening, the time when he would arrive, and warn him of the plot? But Jondrette