Page 959 - les-miserables

mute. Moreover, no one guards a secret like a child.
But when, at the expiration of these lugubrious twen-
ty-four hours, she beheld Jean Valjean again, she gave vent
to such a cry of joy, that any thoughtful person who had
chanced to hear that cry, would have guessed that it issued
from an abyss.
Fauchelevent belonged to the convent and knew the pass-
words. All the doors opened.
Thus was solved the double and alarming problem of
how to get out and how to get in.
The porter, who had received his instructions, opened the
little servant’s door which connected the courtyard with the
garden, and which could still be seen from the street twenty
years ago, in the wall at the bottom of the court, which faced
the carriage entrance.
The porter admitted all three of them through this door,
and from that point they reached the inner, reserved parlor
where Fauchelevent, on the preceding day, had received his
orders from the prioress.
The prioress, rosary in hand, was waiting for them. A vo-
cal mother, with her veil lowered, stood beside her.
A discreet candle lighted, one might almost say, made a
show of lighting the parlor.
The prioress passed Jean Valjean in review. There is noth-
ing which examines like a downcast eye.
Then she questioned him:—
‘You are the brother?’
‘Yes, reverend Mother,’ replied Fauchelevent.
‘What is your name?’

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