A week later, Cosette walked arm-in-arm with Marius away from the graveyard.
"Marius…" Cosette began in a tense and nervous tone. "I was wondering…" Marius looked at her, fully aware of what she was about to ask about. "What happened between you and my father? And why did he not want me to call him 'Papa'?"
Marius took a deep breath, and slowly began to tell her about her past, starting at the very beginning. He told her of how her father was a convict, how he had stolen a loaf of bread and was imprisoned. He broke parole, and that was why Cosette was always so sheltered. Marius told her how she was not related to her 'papa' in any way, and that he had simply taken care of her when she needed it most. Marius then reluctantly told her of how he thought that her father was a murderer, and how wrong he turned out to be.
This was a lot of information; for a few minutes Cosette said nothing. Then she turned and looked at Marius.
"Why didn't you tell me any of this?" she asked.
"Your father asked me not to," Marius replied. He saw that that was not going to work, and then he continued. "And I wanted to protect you. Remember, I didn't know then that he was not a murderer. I feel horrible now- despicable, in fact-"
"Don't-"
"No, Cosette. I won't keep things like that from you anymore. In fact, I am promising you, right now, that I won't keep secrets from you. Ever." He reached for her hand, and she gave it to him, smiling ever so slightly. He kissed her hand delicately. "Please accept my apology."
"You are forgiven," she said softly.
After hearing all this, she was still feeling slightly overwhelmed; when they reached the carriage she sat down immediately. They rode home in silence. Now, though, it was not because there was an elephant sitting in between them, it was because they were both lost in thoughts that the afternoon's event had brought up. At the funeral, Marius had seen how few people Cosette actually had encountered in her childhood. He had thought he grasped this at their wedding, where there were very few guests there for her. However, the only person at his father-in-law's funeral, besides himself, Cosette, his grandfather, aunt, and the priest, was the landlord of the apartment Valjean had lived in after the wedding. The landlord had turned up out of a duty he felt he owed to the man, but Marius thought it was very kind. Indeed, he felt almost sick at the thought of how little interaction Cosette had had with other people when she was growing up. He realized that he was probably one of the first people to talk to her, outside of the girls at the convent she had grown up in.
In the months that passed, Marius spent a lot of time in his study, brooding about how cruel he was to his dead father-in-law. Cosette knew of this, and it pained her. Oftentimes she would arrive with a basket of food and demand that they go for a picnic in the park, or simply take a walk around Paris. She would open the shades in the study to let the sunlight in.
Though he was always delighted to see her, Marius always returned to his study when they returned home. He felt that he had failed a duty to this man, and by wishing he could undo it, then the mistake would be fixed.
However, he did spend a fair amount of time outside of his study. He would always appear at mealtimes, and aside from his walks with her, Cosette demanded a lot of his attention, which he was more than happy to give her. They usually went to bed early, though not to sleep. When they had spent a long day out, having their lips meet tenderly at the end of they day felt like taking a fresh breath of air. He would tenderly make love to her, and to his delight Cosette seemed to feel as much passion as he did, and they eagerly made discoveries as to what the other truly enjoyed. Lying awake in each other's arms during the early hours of the morning, they would tell each other of all the dreams and wishes they had ever had, and of all of the thoughts that had ever crossed their minds. Both thought that there was no greater pleasure than waking up to find the other lying next to them, still asleep. Better yet was waking in each other's arms.
Though they enjoyed many wonderful times, the time that passed after Valjean's death only made life more strained. Marius seemed to feel that the longer Valjean had been dead was a measure of how ungrateful he had been, and of course this number could only increase. He spent more and more time locked away, feeling that he did not deserve this happiness that had been given him.
Cosette woke one morning, pleasantly blinking the sun out of her eyes, and smiled. She rolled over, meaning to curl her bare arms around Marius' bare chest, only to find that he was not there. She sat up and found a note on the pillow, saying that he had gotten up early and could not sleep. Not wanting to wake her, he had gone to get some work done. She frowned. It was barely seven in the morning and he had already locked himself in that horrid study. Remembering the promise she had made herself right after her father's death, she quickly dressed herself and left the room. She already had a plan in her head as she firmly walked into the study.