"Oh! be easy on that score, Miss."
Toussaint did not fail in her duty, and Cosette was well aware of the fact, but she could not refrain from adding:--
"It is so solitary here."
"So far as that is concerned," said Toussaint, "it is true. We might be assassinated before we had time to say ouf! And Monsieur does not sleep in the house, to boot. But fear nothing, Miss, I fasten the shutters up like prisons. Lone women!
That is enough to make one shudder, I believe you! Just imagine, what if you were to see men enter your chamber at night and say:
`Hold your tongue!'' and begin to cut your throat. It''s not the dying so much; you die, for one must die, and that''s all right; it''s the abomination of feeling those people touch you. And then, their knives; they can''t be able to cut well with them! Ah, good gracious!"
"Be quiet," said Cosette.
"Fasten everything thoroughly."
Cosette, terrified by the melodrama improvised by Toussaint, and possibly, also, by the recollection of the apparitions of the past week, which recurred to her memory, dared not even say to her: "Go and look at the stone which has been placed on the bench!" for fear of opening the garden gate and allowing "the men" to enter. She saw that all the doors and windows were carefully fastened, made Toussaint go all over the house from garret to cellar, locked herself up in her own chamber, bolted her door, looked under her couch, went to bed and slept badly.