Thénardier seized the letter with a sort of feverish convulsion.
"Wife!" he shouted, and the woman came up. "Here is the letter, and you know what you have to do. There is a hackney coach down below, so be off at once, and return ditto." Then he turned to the man with the pole-axe, and said, "As you have taken off your muffler, you can accompany her. Get up behind the coach. You know where you left it?"
"Yes," said the man; and depositing the axe in a corner, he followed the woman. As they were going away Thénardier thrust his head out of the door and shouted down the passage,—
"Mind and do not lose the letter! Remember you have two hundred thousand francs about you."
The woman's hoarse voice replied,—
"Don't be frightened, I have put it in my stomach."
A minute had not elapsed when the crack of a whip could be heard rapidly retiring.
"All right," Thénardier growled, "they are going at a good pace; with a gallop like that she will be back in three quarters of an hour."
He drew up a chair to the fire-side, and sat down with folded arms, and holding his muddy boots to the heating-pan.
"My feet are cold," he said.