Cosette rose, and slowly went round the garden, walking on the dew-laden grass and saying to herself through the sort of melancholy somnambulism in which she was plunged: "I ought to have wooden shoes to walk in the garden at this hour; I shall catch cold." She returned to the bench; but at the moment when she was going to sit down, she noticed at the place she had left a rather large stone, which had evidently not been there a moment before. Cosette looked at the stone, asking herself what it meant. All at once the idea that the stone had not reached the bench of itself, that some one had placed it there, and that an arm had been passed through the grating, occurred to her and frightened her. This time it was a real fear, for there was the stone. No doubt was possible. She did not touch it, but fled without daring to look behind her, sought refuge in the house, and at once shuttered, barred, and bolted the French window opening on the steps. Then she asked Toussaint,—
"Has my father come in?"
"No, Miss."
(We have indicated once for all Toussaint's stammering, and we ask leave no longer to accentuate it, as we feel a musical notation of an infirmity to be repulsive.)
Jean Valjean, a thoughtful man, and stroller by night, often did not return till a late hour.
"Toussaint," Cosette continued, "be careful to put up the bars to the shutters looking on the garden, and to place the little iron things in the rings that close them."
"Oh, I am sure I will, Miss."
Toussaint did not fail, and Cosette was well aware of the fact, but she could not refrain from adding,—
"For it is so desolate here."
"Well, that's true," said Toussaint; "we might be murdered before we had the time to say, Ouf! and then, too, master does not sleep in the house. But don't be frightened, Miss. I fasten up the windows like Bastilles. Lone women! I should think that is enough to make a body shudder. Only think! to see men coming into your bedroom and hear them say, 'Be quiet, you!' and then they begin to cut your throat. It is not so much the dying, for everybody dies, and we know that we must do so; but it is the abomination of feeling those fellows touch you; and then their knives are not sharp, perhaps; oh, Lord!"