The most frightful thoughts crossed his mind pell-mell. There are moments when hideous suppositions assail us like a band of furies and violently force the bolts of our brain. When it is a question about people whom we love, our prudence invents all sorts of follies. He remembered that sleep in the open air on a cold night might be mortal. Cosette was lying stretched out motionless at his feet. He listened for her breath; she was breathing, but so faintly that it seemed as if the respiration would cease at any moment. How was he to warm her? How was he to wake her? All that did not refer to this slipped from his mind, and he rushed wildly from the shed. It was absolutely necessary that Cosette should be in bed before a fire within a quarter of an hour. CHAPTER IX. THE MAN WITH THE BELL. Jean Valjean walked straight up to the man whom he saw in the garden, and while doing so took from his pocket the rouleau of silver. This man was looking down, and did not see him coming, and in a few strides Jean Valjean was by his side, and addressed him with the cry, "One hundred francs." The man started and raised his eyes. "One hundred francs to be gained," Jean Valjean continued, "if you will find me a shelter for this night." The moon fully lit up Jean Valjean's alarmed face. "Why, it is you, Father Madeleine!" the man said. The name uttered thus in the darkness at this strange spot, by this strange man, made Jean Valjean recoil, for he expected everything save that. The man who addressed him was a stooping, lame old man, dressed nearly like a peasant, and wearing on his left leg a leathern knee-cap, from which hung a rather large bell. It was impossible to distinguish his face, which was in the shadow; still the man had doffed his bonnet, and said all in a tremor,-- "Oh, Lord, how did you get here, Father Madeleine? Which way did you come in? Why, you must have fallen from heaven. Well, if ever you do fall, it will be from there. And then, what a state you are in! You have no cravat, no hat, and no coat! Do you know that you would have frightened anybody who did not know you? No coat! Oh, my goodness, are the saints going mad at present? But how _did_ you get in here?" One word did not wait for the next, the old man spoke with a rustic volubility in which there was nothing alarming; and it was all said with a mixture of stupefaction and simple kindness. "Who are you, and what is this house?" Jean Valjean asked. "Oh, Lord, that is too strong!" the old man exclaimed. "Why, did you not get me the situation, and in this house too? What, don't you recognize me?" "No," said Jean Valjean; "and how is it that you know me?" "You saved my life," the man said. He turned; a moonbeam played on his face, and Jean Valjean recognized old Fauchelevent. "Ah!" he said, "it is you? Oh, now I recognize you." "That is lucky," the old man said reproachfully. "And what are you doing here?" Jean Valjean asked. "Why, I am covering my melons!"