While the two women were whispering together, with their backs turned to Fantine’s bed, the sister interrogating, the servant conjecturing, Fantine, with the feverish vivacity of certain organic maladies, which unite the free movements of health with the frightful emaciation of death, had raised herself to her knees in bed, with her shrivelled hands resting on the bolster, and her head thrust through the opening of the curtains, and was listening. All at once she cried:— “You are speaking of M. Madeleine! Why are you talking so low? What is he doing? Why does he not come?” Her voice was so abrupt and hoarse that the two women thought they heard the voice of a man; they wheeled round in affright. “Answer me!” cried Fantine. The servant stammered:— “The portress told me that he could not come to-day.” “Be calm, my child,” said the sister; “lie down again.” Fantine, without changing her attitude, continued in a loud voice, and with an accent that was both imperious and heart-rending:— “He cannot come? Why not? You know the reason. You are whispering it to each other there. I want to know it.” The servant-maid hastened to say in the nun’s ear, “Say that he is busy with the city council.” Sister Simplice blushed faintly, for it was a lie that the maid had proposed to her. On the other hand, it seemed to her that the mere communication of the truth to the invalid would, without doubt, deal her a terrible blow, and that this was a serious matter in Fantine’s present state. Her flush did not last long; the sister raised her calm, sad eyes to Fantine, and said, “Monsieur le Maire has gone away.” Fantine raised herself and crouched on her heels in the bed: her eyes sparkled; indescribable joy beamed from that melancholy face. “Gone!” she cried; “he has gone to get Cosette.” Then she raised her arms to heaven, and her white face became ineffable; her lips moved; she was praying in a low voice. When her prayer was finished, “Sister,” she said, “I am willing to lie down again; I will do anything you wish; I was naughty just now; I beg your pardon for having spoken so loud; it is very wrong to talk loudly; I know that well, my good sister, but, you see, I am very happy: the good God is good; M. Madeleine is good; just think! he has gone to Montfermeil to get my little Cosette.” She lay down again, with the nun’s assistance, helped the nun to arrange her pillow, and kissed the little silver cross which she wore on her neck, and which Sister Simplice had given her. “My child,” said the sister, “try to rest now, and do not talk any more.” Fantine took the sister’s hand in her moist hands, and the latter was pained to feel that perspiration.