Suddenly Mme. Thénardier remembers the bread. Cosette, desperately attempting to avoid her wrath, pretends the bakery was closed. But now she cannot find the coin to give it back. The stranger intervenes once more; pretending to pick up a coin from the floor, he gives the woman a 20-sou piece he has taken from his pocket. His kindness does not stop there. He notices that Cosette is diligently knitting while the Thénardier girls are playing without a care. Moved to compassion, he buys the unfinished socks for the exorbitant sum of five francs and relieves Cosette of her dreary task.
Little girls need toys to fill their leisure, however, and Cosette has none. When the Thénardier children abandon their doll for a moment to play with the cat, Cosette surreptitiously grabs it, but when the theft is discovered, Mme. Thénardier erupts with the violence of a storm. Cosette wrings her hands in desperation and terror. The stranger then does an incredible thing. He steps out of the inn and returns with the magnificent doll from the village shop, which he hands to Cosette. The assembly is stunned, Mme. Thénardier is speechless, and Cosette contemplates the doll with awed veneration.
After his dramatic intervention, the man returns to his reverie and much later retires to his room, escorted by a now obsequious Thénardier. Before he retires, however, he performs one last good deed. The Thénardier girls have placed their little shoes near the chimney and a tender mother has put a 10-sou coin in each. Next to them stands a worn, muddy wooden shoe, empty. The traveler puts a shining gold louis in it and steals off to bed.
