What was taking place in this young and already so impenetrable mind? What was going to be accomplished? What was happening to Cosette's soul? Sometimes, instead of going to bed, Jean Valjean would remain seated by his bedside with his head between his hands, and spent whole nights in asking himself, "What has Cosette on her mind?" and in thinking of the things of which she might be thinking. Oh, at such moments what sad glances he turned toward the convent, that chaste summit, that abiding place of angels, that inaccessible glacier of virtue! With what despairing ravishment did he contemplate that garden, full of ignored flowers and immured virgins, where all the perfumes and all the souls ascend direct to heaven! How he adored that Eden, now closed against him forever, and which he had voluntarily and madly left! How he lamented his self-denial and his madness in bringing Cosette back to the world! He was the poor hero of the sacrifice, seized and hurled down by his own devotion. How he said to himself, What have I done? However, nothing of this was visible to Cosette,--neither temper nor roughness,--it was ever the same serene kind face. Jean Valjean's manner was even more tender and paternal than before; and if anything could have shown that he was less joyous, it was his greater gentleness. On her side, Cosette was pining; she suffered from Marius's absence, as she had revelled in his presence, singularly, and not exactly knowing why. When Jean Valjean ceased taking her for her usual walk, a feminine instinct had whispered to her heart that she must not appear to be attached to the Luxembourg, and that if she displayed indifference in the matter her father would take her back to it. But days, weeks, and months succeeded each other, for Jean Valjean had tacitly accepted Cosette's tacit consent. She regretted it, but it was too late, and on the day when they returned to the Luxembourg, Marius was no longer there. He had disappeared, then, it was all over. What could she do? Would she ever see him again? She felt a contraction of the heart which nothing dilated and which daily increased; she no longer knew whether it were summer or winter, sunshine or rain, whether the birds were singing, whether it was the dahlia or the daisy season, whether the Luxembourg was more charming than the Tuileries, whether the linen brought home by the washerwoman was too much or insufficiently starched, or if Toussaint had gone to market well or ill; and she remained crushed, absorbed, attentive to one thought alone, with a vague and fixed eye, like a person gazing through the darkness at the deep black spot where a phantom has just vanished. Still, she did not allow Jean Valjean to see anything but her pallor, and her face was ever gentle to him. This pallor, though, was more than sufficient to render Jean Valjean anxious, and at times he would ask her: "What is the matter with you?" And she answered,-- "Nothing."