She looked at Marius intently and said, "I have the address." Marius turned pale, and all his blood flowed to his heart. "What address?" "The address which you asked me for;" and she added, as if with a great effort, "the address,--you surely understand?" "Yes," stammered Marius. "The young lady's." These words uttered, she heaved a deep sigh. Marius leaped from the parapet on which he was sitting, and wildly seized her hand. "Oh, lead me to it! Tell me! Ask of me what you please! Where is it?" "Come with me," she answered; "I don't exactly know the street or the number, and it is quite on the other side of town; but I know the house well, and will take you to it." She withdrew her hand, and continued in a tone which would have made an observer's heart bleed, but did not at all affect the intoxicated and transported lover,-- "Oh, how pleased you are!" A cloud passed over Marius's forehead, and he clutched Éponine's arm. "Swear one thing." "Swear?" she said. "What do you mean by that? Indeed, you want me to swear?" And she burst into a laugh. "Your father! Promise me, Éponine,--swear to me that you will never tell your father that address." She turned to him with an air of stupefaction. "Éponine! how do you know that is my name?" "Promise me what I ask you." But she did not seem to hear him. "That is nice! You called me Éponine!" Marius seized both her arms. "Answer me in Heaven's name! Pay attention to what I am saying,--swear to me that you will not tell your father the address which you know." "My father?" she remarked, "oh, yes, my father. He's all right in a secret cell. Besides, what do I care for my father?" "But you have not promised!" Marius exclaimed. "Let me go!" she said, as she burst into a laugh; "how you are shaking me! Yes, yes, I promise it; I swear it! How does it concern me? I will not tell my father the address. There, does that suit you; is that it?" "And no one else?" said Marius. "And no one else." "Now," Marius continued, "lead me there." "At once?" "Yes." "Come on! Oh, how glad he is!" she said. A few yards farther on she stopped. "You are following me too closely, Monsieur Marius; let me go on in front and do you follow me, as if you were not doing so. A respectable young man like you must not be seen with such a woman as I am." No language could render all that was contained in the word "woman," thus pronounced by this child. She went a dozen paces and stopped again. Marius rejoined her, and she said to him aside without turning to him,-- "By the bye, you know that you promised me something?" Marius felt in his pocket; he had nothing in the world but the five-franc piece destined for Father Thénardier, but he laid the coin in Éponine's hand. She let it slip through her fingers on the ground, and looking at him frowningly said,-- "I do not want your money." BOOK III. THE HOUSE OF THE RUE PLUMET. CHAPTER I. THE MYSTERIOUS HOUSE.