"I will explain. Have you a room?"
"I have a cottage behind the ruins of the old convent, in a corner which no one visits, with three rooms."
"Good," said Jean Valjean; "now I will ask two things of you."
"What are they, M. le Maire?"
"First, that you will tell nobody what you know about me; and secondly, that you will not try to learn anything further."
"As you please. I know that you can do nothing but what is honest, and that you have ever been a man after God's heart. And then, again, it was you who got me this situation, and I am at your service."
"Enough; now come with me, and we will go and fetch the child."
"Ah," said Fauchelevent,"there is a child!"
He did not add a word, but followed Jean Valjean as a dog follows its master. In less than half an hour, Cosette, who had become rosy again by the heat of a good fire, was asleep in the old gardener's bed. Jean Valjean had put on his cravat and coat again; the hat thrown over the wall had been found and picked up, and Fauchelevent took off his knee-cap and bell, which now adorned the wall by the side of a door. The two men were seated near the fire at a table on which Fauchelevent had placed a lump of cheese, biscuits, a bottle of wine, and two glasses, and the old man said to Jean Valjean as he laid his hand on his knee,—
"Ah, Father Madeleine! you did not recognize me at once; you save people's lives and forget them afterwards! Oh, that is wrong, for they remember you; you are an ungrateful man."