The heat of the coal-fire was so great that the candle on the table was melted and guttering on the side turned toward it. An old copper dark-lantern, worthy of a Diogenes who had turned Cartouche, was standing on the mantel-piece. The heating-dish, which stood in the fire-place close to the decaying logs, sent its smoke up the chimney, and thus produced no smell. The moon, which found its way through the skylight, poured its whiteness on the purple and flashing garret, and to the poetic mind of Marius, who was a dreamer even in the moment of action, it was like a thought of heaven mingled with the shapeless dreams of earth. A breath of air, that penetrated through the broken pane, also helped to dissipate the smell of charcoal and conceal the heating-dish. Jondrette's den, if our readers remember what we have said about the house, was admirably selected to serve as the scene of a violent and dark deed, and as a covert for crime. It was the farthest room in the most isolated house on the most deserted Parisian boulevard; and if ambushes did not exist they would have been invented there. The whole length of a house and a number of uninhabited rooms separated this lair from the boulevard, and the only window in it looked out on fields enclosed by walls and fences. Jondrette had lit his pipe, was seated on the bottomless chair and smoking, and his wife was speaking to him in a low voice. If Marius had been Courfeyrac, that is to say, one of those men who laugh at every opportunity, he would have burst into a roar when his eye fell on Mother Jondrette. She had on a bonnet with black feathers, like the hats worn by the heralds at the coronation of Charles X., an immense tartan shawl over her cotton skirt, and the man's shoes which her daughter had disdained in the morning. It was this attire which drew from Jondrette the exclamation, "That's right; I am glad to see that you are dressed, for it inspires confidence." As for Jondrette, he had not taken off the new coat which M. Leblanc had given him, and his dress continued to offer that contrast between trousers and coat which constituted in Courfeyrac's sight the ideal of the poet. All at once Jondrette raised his voice:-- "By the way, in such weather as this he will come in a hackney coach. Light your lamp and go down, and keep behind the front gate; when you hear the vehicle stop you will open the gate at once, light him upstairs and along the passage, and when he has come in here you will go down as quickly as you can, pay the coachman, and discharge him." "Where is the money to come from?" the woman asked. Jondrette felt in his pocket, and gave her five francs. "What is this?" she exclaimed. "The monarch which our neighbor gave us this morning," responded Jondrette with dignity, and added, "we shall want two chairs, though." "What for?" "Why, to sit down!" Marius shuddered on hearing the woman make the quiet answer,-- "Well, I will go and fetch our neighbor's."