He threw himself against a tree, with his arms over his head and his forehead pressed to the bark, neither feeling the wood that grazed his skin nor the fever which spotted his temples, motionless and ready to fall, like the statue of despair. He remained for a long time in this state--people would remain for an eternity in such abysses. At length he turned and heard behind a little stifled, soft, and sad sound; it was Cosette sobbing; she had been crying for more than two hours by the side of Marius, who was reflecting. He went up to her, fell on his knees, seized her foot, which peeped out from under her skirt, and kissed it. She let him do so in silence, for there are moments when a woman accepts, like a sombre and resigned duty, the worship of love. "Do not weep," he said. She continued,-- "But I am perhaps going away, and you are not able to come with me." He said, "Do you love me?" She replied by sobbing that Paradisaic word, which is never more charming than through tears, "I adore you." He pursued, with an accent which was an inexpressible caress,-- "Do not weep. Will you do so much for me as to check your tears?" "Do you love me?" she said. He took her hand. "Cosette, I have never pledged my word of honor to any one, because it frightens me, and I feel that my father is by the side of it. Well, I pledge you my most sacred word of honor that if you go away I shall die." There was in the accent with which he uttered these words such a solemn and calm melancholy that Cosette trembled, and she felt that chill which is produced by the passing of a sombre and true thing. In her terror she ceased to weep. "Now listen to me," he said; "do not expect me to-morrow." "Why not?" "Do not expect me till the day after." "Oh, why?" "You will see." "A day without your coming!--oh, it is impossible!" "Let us sacrifice a day, to have, perhaps, one whole life." And Marius added in a low voice and aside,--"He is a man who makes no change in his habits, and he never received anybody before the evening." "What man are you talking about?" Cosette asked. "I? I did not say anything." "What do you hope for, then?" "Wait till the day after to-morrow." "Do you desire it?" "Yes, Cosette." He took her head between his two hands, as she stood on tiptoe to reach him and tried to see his hopes in his eyes. Marius added,-- "By the bye, you must know my address, for something might happen; I live with my friend Courfeyrac, at No. 16, Rue de la Verrerie." He felt in his pockets, took out a knife, and scratched the address on the plaster of the wall. In the mean while Cosette had begun looking in his eyes again. "Tell me your thought, Marius, for you have one. Tell it to me. Oh, tell it to me, so that I may pass a good night!" "My thought is this: it is impossible that God can wish to separate us. Expect me the day after to-morrow."