Marius kept his promise about not telling Cosette, and Valjean visited her every evening in a small room on the ground floor. It was cold and damp, but a fire had been lit and two armchairs had been placed in front of it. At first, Cosette could not understand why Valjean refused to meet her upstairs. When he refused to kiss her cheek, she began to feel unhappy, afraid that she had done something to offend him. She pressed his hands in hers and held them to her lips.

'Please, please be kind!' she begged. 'I want you to come and live with us. You'll always be my father and I'm not going to let you go.'

He released his hands.

'You mustn't call me "father" any more,' he told her. 'You must call me "Monsieur Jean".'

'I don't understand,' she said, becoming angry. 'This is ridiculous. You're upsetting me very much, and I don't know why you're being so cruel.'

'You don't need a father any more. You have a husband.'

'What a thing to say!' Cosette replied. 'Are you angry with me because I'm happy?'

'Cosette,' he said, 'your happiness is the only thing that matters to me. You're happy now, and so my work is complete.'

With these words, he picked up his hat and left.

Jean Valjean continued his evening visits, but the relationship between himself and Cosette became cooler and more distant. She stopped calling him 'father' or asking him questions. As 'Monsieur Jean', he gradually became a different person to her, and she began not to depend on him for her happiness.

Valjean would sit looking at Cosette in silence, or would talk about incidents from their past. One evening in April, he called at the usual time but was told that Cosette had gone out with her husband. He waited in the small, damp room for an hour before sadly returning home. Over the next few days, his visits began to be interrupted by servants calling Cosette to dinner. When he arrived, he discovered that the fire had not been lit, and the armchairs had been left near the door. One evening he discovered there were no chairs in the room at all - he and Cosette had to stand in the cold for their whole meeting. Valjean realized what was happening; Marius was telling the servants not to make him welcome any more. That night he went home in despair, and the next evening he did not come at all.