A few days later, at about eight in the evening, he was giving Cosette a spelling lesson, when he heard the house door open and then close again. This appeared to him singular, for the old woman, who alone lived in the house beside himself, always went to bed at nightfall to save candle. Jean Valjean made Cosette a sign to be silent, for he heard some one coming upstairs. After all it might be the old woman, who felt unwell, and had been to the chemist's. Jean Valjean listened; the footstep was heavy and sounded like a man's; but the old woman wore thick shoes, and nothing so closely resembles a man's footstep as an old woman's. For all that, though, Jean Valjean blew out his candle. He had sent Cosette to bed, saying in a whisper, "Make no noise," and while he was kissing her forehead the footsteps stopped. Jean Valjean remained silently in his chair, with his back turned to the door, and holding his breath in the darkness. After a long interval, hearing nothing more, he turned noiselessly, and, on looking at his door, saw a light through the key-hole, which formed a sort of sinister star in the blackness of the door and the wall. There was evidently some one there holding a candle in his hand and listening. A few minutes passed, and then the light went away: still he did not hear the sound of footsteps, which seemed to indicate that the man who came to listen had taken off his shoes. Jean Valjean threw himself full-dressed on his bed, and could not close his eyes all night. At daybreak, when he was just yielding to fatigue, he was aroused by the creaking of a door which opened into a room at the end of the passage, and then heard the same footstep which had ascended the stairs the previous evening drawing nearer. He put his eye to the key-hole, which was rather large, in the hope of seeing the man who had listened at his door over-night. It was really a man, who this time passed Jean Valjean's door without stopping. The passage was still too dark for him to distinguish his face; but when the man reached the staircase a ray of light from outside fell upon him, and Jean Valjean saw his back perfectly. He was a tall man, dressed in a long coat, with a cudgel under his arm; and he was very like Javert. Valjean might have tried to see him on the boulevard through his window; but for that purpose he must have opened it, and that he dared not do. It was plain that this man came in with a key and was quite at home. Who gave him this key? What did it mean? At seven o'clock, when the old woman came to clean up, Jean Valjean gave her a piercing glance, but did not question her. The good woman was as calm as usual, and while sweeping she said to him,--