Javert took from his pocket four Napoleons, and dismissed the hackney coach. Jean Valjean thought that it was Javert's intention to take him on foot to the Blancs Manteaux post, or that of the Archives, which were close by. They entered the street, which was as usual deserted. Javert followed Jean Valjean, and, on reaching No. 7, the latter rapped, and the gate opened. "Very good," said Javert; "go up." He added, with a strange expression, and as if making an effort to speak in this way,-- "I will wait for you here." Jean Valjean looked at Javert, for this style of conduct was not at all a habit of Javert's. Still, it could not surprise him greatly that Javert should now place in him a sort of haughty confidence,--the confidence of the cat which grants the mouse liberty to the length of its claw, determined as Jean Valjean was to give himself up and make an end of it. He thrust open the gate, entered the house, shouted to the porter, who was lying down and had pulled the string from his bed, "It is I," and mounted the staircase. On reaching the first story he paused, for every Via Dolorosa has its stations. The window at the head of the stairs, a sash-window, was open. As is the case in many old houses, the staircase obtained light from, and looked out on, the street. The street lantern, situated precisely opposite, threw some little light on the stairs, which caused a saving of a lamp. Jean Valjean, either to breathe or mechanically, thrust his head out of this window and looked down into the street. It is short, and the lamp lit it from one end to the other. Jean Valjean had a bedazzlement of stupor: there was no one in it. Javert had gone away. CHAPTER XII. THE GRANDFATHER. Basque and the porter had carried Marius, who was still lying motionless on the sofa on which he had been laid on arriving, into the drawing-room. The physician, who had been sent for, hurried in, and Aunt Gillenormand had risen. Aunt Gillenormand came and went, horrified, clasping her hands, and incapable of doing anything but saying, "Can it be possible?" She added at intervals, "Everything will be stained with blood." When the first horror had passed away a certain philosophy of the situation appeared even in her mind, and was translated by the exclamation, "It must end in that way." She did not go so far, though, as "Did I not say so?" which is usual on occasions of this nature.