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Cosette nodded gravely.
Jean Valjean turned round at the noise made by Fau-
chelevent opening the door.
‘Wel l? ’
‘Everything is arranged, and nothing is,’ said Fauchelev-
ent. ‘I have permission to bring you in; but before bringing
you in you must be got out. That’s where the difficulty lies.
It is easy enough with the child.’
‘You will carry her out?’
‘And she will hold her tongue?’
‘I answer for that.’
‘But you, Father Madeleine?’
And, after a silence, fraught with anxiety, Fauchelevent
exclaimed:—
‘Why, get out as you came in!’
Jean Valjean, as in the first instance, contented himself
with saying, ‘Impossible.’
Fauchelevent grumbled, more to himself than to Jean
Va lj e a n :—
‘There is another thing which bothers me. I have said
that I would put earth in it. When I come to think it over,
the earth instead of the corpse will not seem like the real
thing, it won’t do, it will get displaced, it will move about.
The men will bear it. You understand, Father Madeleine, the
government will notice it.’
Jean Valjean stared him straight in the eye and thought
that he was raving.
Fauchelevent went on:—
‘How the de—uce are you going to get out? It must all be