Summer and autumn passed, and winter came, but Marius saw no sign of M. Leblanc or 'Ursula'. He searched everywhere for them, but without success. He became like a homeless dog, wandering the streets in a mood of dark despair. Without 'Ursula', his life had become meaningless, work disgusted him, walking tired him, solitude bored him.

'If only I hadn't followed them home,' he told himself. 'It gave me so much happiness just to look at her, and now, through my stupidity, I've lost even that.'

Enjolras and his other friends tried to cheer him up by taking him to exciting places, but these expeditions always ended in the same way: Marius would leave the group and walk around the streets of Paris unhappily on his own.

One cold but sunny afternoon in February, Marius was walking along the street when two young girls dressed in rags ran into him. One was tall and thin, the other smaller. From what they were shouting at each other, he understood that they were running from the police. He stood for a moment staring after them as they disappeared round a corner. Then he noticed a small parcel of papers lying on the ground.

Realizing that one of the girls must have dropped it, he picked it up and called after them, but it was too late. The girls had already disappeared from sight. With a sigh, he put the package in his pocket and went on to dinner.

That night at home, Marius opened the package and found that it contained four letters, all addressed to different people, and smelling strongly of cheap tobacco. Marius read the four letters and discovered that they were all asking for money. However, there was something strange about them: although they all seemed to be written by different people, they were written on the same rough paper in the same handwriting. He also noticed that each of them had similar spelling mistakes. Thinking no more about it, he wrapped the letters up again, threw them into a corner and went to bed.

The next morning, while he was working, there was a gentle knock on his door.

'Come in,' Marius said, expecting it to be the concierge, Mme Bougon. But the voice that answered, saying, 'I beg your pardon, Monsieur,' was not that of Mme Bougon. It was more like the voice of a sick old man.