"I will do everything to prove my zeal to the community. I will nail up the coffin, and be in the chapel at eleven o'clock precisely; the singing mothers and Mother Ascension will be there. Two men would be better; but no matter, I shall have my crowbar. We will open the vault, let down the coffin, and close it again. After that there will not be a trace, and the Government will have no suspicion. Reverend Mother, is all arranged thus?" "No." "What is there still?" "There is the empty coffin." This was a difficulty; Fauchelevent thought of and on it, and so did the prioress. "Father Fauvent, what must be done with the other coffin." "It must be buried." "Empty?" Another silence. Fauchelevent made with his left hand that sort of gesture which dismisses a disagreeable question. "Reverend Mother, I will nail up the coffin and cover it with the pall." "Yes; but the bearers, while placing it in the hearse and lowering it into the grave, will soon perceive that there is nothing in it." "Oh, the de--!" Fauchelevent exclaimed. The prioress began a cross, and looked intently at the gardener; the _vil_ stuck in his throat, and he hastily improvised an expedient to cause the oath to be forgotten. "Reverend Mother, I will put earth in the coffin, which will produce the effect of a body." "You are right, for earth is the same as a human being. So you will manage the empty coffin?" "I take it on myself." The face of the prioress, which had hitherto been troubled and clouded, now grew serene. She made the sign of a superior dismissing an inferior, and Fauchelevent walked toward the door. As he was going out, the prioress gently raised her voice. "Father Fauvent, I am satisfied with you; to-morrow, after the interment, bring me your brother, and tell him to bring me his daughter." CHAPTER IV. A PLAN OF ESCAPE. The strides of halting men are like the glances of squinters, they do not reach their point very rapidly. Fauchelevent was perplexed, and he spent upwards of a quarter of an hour in returning to the garden cottage. Cosette was awake, and Jean Valjean had seated her by the fireside. At the moment when Fauchelevent entered, Jean Valjean was pointing to the gardener's basket leaning in a corner, and saying to her,-- "Listen to me carefully, little Cosette. We are obliged to leave this house, but shall return to it, and be very happy. The good man will carry you out in that thing upon his back, and you will wait for me with a lady till I come to fetch you. If you do not wish Madame Thénardier to catch you again, obey, and say not a word." Cosette nodded her head gravely; at the sound Fauchelevent made in opening the door Jean Valjean turned round. "Well?" "All is arranged, and nothing is so," said Fauchelevent. "I have leave to bring you in, but to bring you in you must go out. That is the difficulty; it is easy enough with the little one." "You will carry her out?" "Will she be quiet?" "I answer for that."