She began to reckon on her fingers.
"One, two, three, four--she is seven years old.
In five years she will have a white veil, and openwork stockings; she will look like a little woman.
O my good sister, you do not know how foolish I become when I think of my daughter's first communion!"
She began to laugh.
He had released Fantine's hand.
He listened to her words as one listens to the sighing of the breeze, with his eyes on the ground, his mind absorbed in reflection which had no bottom.
All at once she ceased speaking, and this caused him to raise his head mechanically. Fantine had become terrible.
She no longer spoke, she no longer breathed; she had raised herself to a sitting posture, her thin shoulder emerged from her chemise; her face, which had been radiant but a moment before, was ghastly, and she seemed to have fixed her eyes, rendered large with terror, on something alarming at the other extremity of the room.
"Good God!" he exclaimed; "what ails you, Fantine?"
She made no reply; she did not remove her eyes from the object which she seemed to see.
She removed one hand from his arm, and with the other made him a sign to look behind him.
He turned, and beheld Javert.
BOOK EIGHTH.--A COUNTER-BLOW
CHAPTER III
JAVERT SATISFIED
This is what had taken place.
The half-hour after midnight had just struck when M. Madeleine quitted the Hall of Assizes in Arras.