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ble. The old man had remained on the bed, and had merely
opened his eyes. The Jondrette woman had seated herself
beside him.
Marius decided that in a few seconds more the moment
for intervention would arrive, and he raised his right hand
towards the ceiling, in the direction of the corridor, in read-
iness to discharge his pistol.
Jondrette having terminated his colloquy with the man
with the cudgel, turned once more to M. Leblanc, and repeat-
ed his question, accompanying it with that low, repressed,
and terrible laugh which was peculiar to him:—
‘So you do not recognize me?’
M. Leblanc looked him full in the face, and replied:—
‘No.’
Then Jondrette advanced to the table. He leaned across
the candle, crossing his arms, putting his angular and fe-
rocious jaw close to M. Leblanc’s calm face, and advancing
as far as possible without forcing M. Leblanc to retreat,
and, in this posture of a wild beast who is about to bite, he
exclaimed:—
‘My name is not Fabantou, my name is not Jondrette, my
name is Thenardier. I am the inn-keeper of Montfermeil!
Do you understand? Thenardier! Now do you know me?’
An almost imperceptible flush crossed M. Leblanc’s brow,
and he replied with a voice which neither trembled nor rose
above its ordinary level, with his accustomed placidity:—
‘No more than before.’
Marius did not hear this reply. Any one who had seen
him at that moment through the darkness would have per-