On her return, she said to Marguerite, who was at work beside her:--
"What is a miliary fever?
Do you know?"
"Yes," answered the old spinster; "it is a disease."
"Does it require many drugs?"
"Oh! terrible drugs."
"How does one get it?"
"It is a malady that one gets without knowing how."
"Then it attacks children?"
"Children in particular."
"Do people die of it?"
"They may," said Marguerite.
Fantine left the room and went to read her letter once more on the staircase.
That evening she went out, and was seen to turn her steps in the direction of the Rue de Paris, where the inns are situated.
The next morning, when Marguerite entered Fantine''s room before daylight,--for they always worked together, and in this manner used only one candle for the two,--she found Fantine seated on her bed, pale and frozen.
She had not lain down. Her cap had fallen on her knees.
Her candle had burned all night, and was almost entirely consumed.
Marguerite halted on the threshold, petrified at this tremendous wastefulness, and exclaimed:--
"Lord! the candle is all burned out!
Something has happened."
Then she looked at Fantine, who turned toward her her head bereft of its hair.
Fantine had grown ten years older since the preceding night.