"Whatever you like."
"Whatever I like? You shall have the address."
She hung her head, and then closed the door with a hurried gesture; Marius was alone again. He fell into a chair, with his head and elbows on his bed, sunk in thoughts which he could not grasp, and suffering from a dizziness. All that had happened since the morning,—the apparition of the angel, her disappearance, and what this creature had just said to him, a gleam of hope floating in an immense despair, —this is what confusedly filled his brain. All at once he was violently dragged out of his reverie, for he heard Jondrette's loud, hard voice uttering words full of the strangest interest for him.
"I tell you that I am sure, and that I recognized him."
Of whom was Jondrette talking, and whom had he recognized? M. Leblanc, the father of "his Ursule." What! did Jondrette know him? Was Marius going to obtain, in this sudden and unexpected fashion, all the information without which his life was obscure for himself? Was he at last going to know who she was whom he loved, and who her father was? Was the thick cloud that covered them on the point of clearing off? Would the veil be rent asunder? Oh, heavens! He bounded rather than ascended upon the chest of drawers and resumed his place at the aperture in the partition: once more he saw the interior of Jondrette's den.
[CHAPTER XII.]
THE USE OF M. LEBLANC'S FIVE-FRANC PIECE.
There was no change in the appearance of the family, save that mother and daughters had put on stockings and flannel waistcoats taken out of the parcel, and two new blankets were thrown on the beds. The man had evidently just returned, for he was out of breath; his daughters were seated near the chimney-piece on the ground, the elder tying up the younger's hand. The mother was crouching on the bed near the fire-place, with an astonished face, while Jondrette was walking up and down the room with long strides and extraordinary eyes. The woman, who seemed frightened and struck with stupor before him, ventured to say,—
"What, really, are you sure?"