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Marius and Cosette come to Valjean, and they both call him “father.” Valjean is overcome with emotion. He asks for Marius’s forgiveness, and Marius offers his thanks instead. Marius and Cosette both urge Valjean to come home with them. 

Valjean announces that he will die soon. 

The doctor appears, and he whispers to Marius that it is too late. The portress comes and asks whether Valjean would like a priest, but he points to the ceiling and says that he has already had one.

Valjean keeps trying to explain to them where the money came from, assuring them that it was gained honestly. He reminds Cosette of all that they did when she was a little girl. 

One day, Marius receives a letter which smells like tobacco and looks unsettling. He recognizes both the smell and the handwriting. The letter states that the sender, who is waiting in the antechamber, has a secret which concerns someone who concerns Marius. 

Marius has Basque bring the man in. Marius is expecting to see his old neighbor Jondrette, but the man who appears is a stranger. His clothes are threadbare, and they don’t fit him. They were lent to him by “the Changer,” a man who collects all sorts of costumes and rents them out to thieves who need to appear honest.

The man reveals that there is a thief and an assassin inside Marius’s house. He tells him that the thief’s name is Jean Valjean, but Marius tells him he already knew this. Marius reveals that he also knows the stranger’s name: Thenardier. Marius says that he knows that Valjean robbed a mayor named Madeleine and killed a police agent named Javert.

Thenardier corrects him, telling him that Madeleine is Valjean and that Javert killed himself. Marius is relieved. Thenardier then tells Marius that he saw Valjean in the sewers on June 6, 1832, carrying a dead man and that Thenardier ripped off a piece of the dead man’s coat as proof. Marius recognizes the fabric.

Marius throws some money at Thenardier and tells him to leave. 

Two days later, Thenardier leaves for America with Azelma and twenty thousand francs. He is not redeemed.

Eventually, Valjean becomes so weak that dressing himself is exhausting. One day, he pulls out the valise and lays out Cosette’s old clothes and lights the bishop’s candlesticks. 

He sits down in front of the mirror, and it looks like he’s aged thirty years since the wedding. 

Eventually, Valjean no longer leaves his apartment, and then he no longer leaves his bed. The portress brings him food, but he stops eating, too. 

Marius tries to edge Valjean out of their lives as much as possible. He avoids using any of the six hundred thousand francs because he thinks it was earned unjustly, and he wants to use it to make restitution to whoever Valjean had wronged. 

One day in the spring, Marius and Cosette decide to go back to visit the garden in the Rue Plumet. They stay all afternoon, and Cosette is not back in time to see Valjean.