In a twinkling Madame Magloire had run to the oratory, entered the alcove, and returned to the Bishop. He was stooping down and looking sorrowfully at a cochlearia, whose stem the basket had broken. He raised himself on hearing Madame Magloire scream,-- "Monseigneur, the man has gone! the plate is stolen!" While uttering this exclamation her eyes fell on a corner of the garden, where there were signs of climbing; the coping of the wall had been torn away. "That is the way he went! He leaped into Cochefilet lane. Oh, what an outrage! He has stolen our plate." The Bishop remained silent for a moment, then raised his earnest eyes, and said gently to Madame Magloire,-- "By the way, was that plate ours?" Madame Magloire was speechless; there was another interval of silence, after which the Bishop continued,-- "Madame Magloire, I had wrongfully held back this silver, which belonged to the poor. Who was this person? Evidently a poor man." "Good gracious!" Madame Magloire continued; "I do not care for it, nor does Mademoiselle, but we feel for Monseigneur. With what will Monseigneur eat now?" The Bishop looked at her in amazement. "Why, are there not pewter forks to be had?" Madame Magloire shrugged her shoulders. "Pewter smells!" "Then iron!" Madame Magloire made an expressive grimace. "Iron tastes." "Well, then," said the Bishop, "wood!" A few minutes later he was breakfasting at the same table at which Jean Valjean sat on the previous evening. While breakfasting Monseigneur Welcome gayly remarked to his sister, who said nothing, and to Madame Magloire, who growled in a low voice, that spoon and fork, even of wood, are not required to dip a piece of bread in a cup of milk. "What an idea!" Madame Magloire said, as she went backwards and forwards, "to receive a man like that, and lodge him by one's side. And what a blessing it is that he only stole! Oh, Lord! the mere thought makes a body shudder." As the brother and sister were leaving the table there was a knock at the door. "Come in," said the Bishop. The door opened, and a strange and violent group appeared on the threshold. Three men were holding a fourth by the collar. The three men were gendarmes, the fourth was Jean Valjean. A corporal, who apparently commanded the party, came in and walked up to the Bishop with a military salute. "Monseigneur," he said. At this word Jean Valjean, who was gloomy and crushed, raised his head with a stupefied air. "'Monseigneur,'" he muttered; "then he is not the Curé." "Silence!" said a gendarme. "This gentleman is Monseigneur the Bishop." In the mean while Monseigneur Welcome had advanced as rapidly as his great age permitted. "Ah! there you are," he said, looking at Jean Valjean. "I am glad to see you. Why, I gave you the candlesticks too, which are also silver, and will fetch you 200 francs. Why did you not take them away with the rest of the plate?"