anything that was a great anxiety with them all, and to come at it in this chance manner—“is there any prospect, yet, of our getting out of this place?”

“I fear not yet. It would be dangerous for Charles yet.”

“Heigh-ho-hum!” said Miss Pross, cheerfully repressing a sigh as she glanced at her darling’s golden hair in the light of the fire, “then we must have patience and wait: that’s all. We must hold up our heads and fight low, as my brother Solomon used to say. Now, Mr. Cruncher!—Don’t you move, Ladybird!”

They went out, leaving Lucie, and her husband, her father, and the child, by a bright fire. Mr. Lorry was expected back presently from the banking house. Miss Pross had lighted the lamp, but had put it aside in a corner, that they might enjoy the firelight undisturbed. Little Lucie sat by her grandfather with her hands clasped through his arm: and he, in a tone not rising much above a whisper, began to tell her a story of a great and powerful fairy who had opened a prison wall and let out a captive who had once done the fairy a service. All was subdued and quiet, and Lucie was more at ease than she had been.

“What is that?” she cried, all at once.

“My dear!” said her father, stopping in his story, and laying his hand on hers, “command yourself. What a disordered state you are in! The least thing—nothing—startles you! You, your father’s daughter!”

“I thought, my father,” said Lucie, excusing herself, with a pale face and in a faltering voice, “that I heard strange feet upon the stairs.”

“My love, the staircase is as still as Death.”

As he said the word, a blow was struck upon the door.

“Oh Father, Father. What can this be! Hide Charles. Save him!”

“My child,” said the Doctor, rising, and laying his hand upon her shoulder, “I have saved him. What weakness is this, my dear! Let me go to the door.”

He took the lamp in his hand, crossed the two intervening outer rooms, and opened it. A rude clattering of feet over the floor, and four rough men in red caps, armed with sabres and pistols, entered the room.

“The Citizen Evrémonde, called Darnay,” said the first.

“Who seeks him?” answered Darnay.

“I seek him. We seek him. I know you, Evrémonde; I saw you before the Tribunal to-day. You are again the prisoner of the Republic.”

The four surrounded him, where he stood with his wife and child clinging to him.

“Tell me how and why am I again a prisoner?”

“It is enough that you return straight to the Conciergerie, and will know to-morrow. You are summoned for to-morrow.”

Doctor Manette, whom this visitation had so turned into stone, that he stood with the lamp in his hand, as if he were a statue made to hold it, moved after these words were spoken, put the lamp down, and confronting the speaker, and taking him, not ungently, by the loose front of his red woollen shirt, said:

“You know him, you have said. Do you know me?”

“Yes, I know you, Citizen Doctor.”

“We all know you, Citizen Doctor,” said the other three.

He looked abstractedly from one to another, and said, in a lower voice, after a pause:

“Will you answer his question to me then? How does this happen?”

“Citizen Doctor,” said the first, reluctantly, “he has been denounced to the section of Saint Antoine. This citizen,” pointing out the second who had entered, “is from Saint Antoine.”

“He is accused by Saint Antoine.”

“Of what?” asked the Doctor.

“Citizen Doctor,” said the first, with his former reluctance, “ask no more. If the Republic demands sacrifices from you, without doubt you as a good patriot will be happy to make them. The Republic goes before all. The People is supreme. Evrémonde, we are pressed.”

“One word,” the Doctor entreated. “Will you tell me who denounced him?”

“It is against rule,” answered the first; “but you can ask him of Saint Antoine here.”

The Doctor turned his eyes upon that man, who moved uneasily on his feet, rubbed his beard a little, and at length said:

“Well! Truly it is against rule. But he is denounced—and gravely—by the Citizen and Citizeness Defarge. And by one other.”

“What other?”

“Do you ask, Citizen Doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Then,” said he of Saint Antoine, with a strange look, “you will be answered to-morrow. Now, I am dumb!”

8

A Hand at Cards

HAPPILY UNCONSCIOUS of the new calamity at home, Miss Pross threaded her way along the narrow streets and crossed the river by the bridge of the Pont-Neuf, reckoning in her