on and his folly in having brought Cosette back into the world, poor hero of sacrifice, seized and hurled to the earth by his very self-devotion! How he said to himself, "What have I done?"
However, nothing of all this was perceptible to Cosette. No ill-temper, no harshness.
His face was always serene and kind. Jean Valjean''s manners were more tender and more paternal than ever. If anything could have betrayed his lack of joy, it was his increased suavity.
On her side, Cosette languished.
She suffered from the absence of Marius as she had rejoiced in his presence, peculiarly, without exactly being conscious of it.
When Jean Valjean ceased to take her on their customary strolls, a feminine instinct murmured confusedly, at the bottom of her heart, that she must not seem to set store on the Luxembourg garden, and that if this proved to be a matter of indifference to her, her father would take her thither once more. But days, weeks, months, elapsed.
Jean Valjean had tacitly accepted Cosette''s tacit consent.
She regretted it.
It was too late. So Marius had disappeared; all was over.
The day on which she returned to the Luxembourg, Marius was no longer there.
What was to be done? Should she ever find him again?
She felt an anguish at her heart, which nothing relieved, and which augmented every day; she no longer knew whether it was winter or summer, whether it was raining or shining, whether the birds were singing, whether it was the season for dahlias or daisies, whether the Luxembourg was more charming than the Tuileries, whether the linen which the laundress brought home was starched too much or not enough, whether Toussaint had