had seen in the course of her existence.
She fled in alarm.
A moment later, Jean Valjean accosted her, and asked her to go and get this thousand-franc bill changed for him, adding that it was his quarterly income, which he had received the day before. "Where?" thought the old woman.
"He did not go out until six o''clock in the evening, and the government bank certainly is not open at that hour."
The old woman went to get the bill changed, and mentioned her surmises.
That thousand-franc note, commented on and multiplied, produced a vast amount of terrified discussion among the gossips of the Rue des Vignes Saint-Marcel.
A few days later, it chanced that Jean Valjean was sawing some wood, in his shirt-sleeves, in the corridor.
The old woman was in the chamber, putting things in order.
She was alone.
Cosette was occupied in admiring the wood as it was sawed.
The old woman caught sight of the coat hanging on a nail, and examined it.
The lining had been sewed up again.
The good woman felt of it carefully, and thought she observed in the skirts and revers thicknesses of paper. More thousand-franc bank-bills, no doubt!
She also noticed that there were all sorts of things in the pockets. Not only the needles, thread, and scissors which she had seen, but a big pocket-book, a very large knife, and--a suspicious circumstance-- several wigs of various colors.