could have been holden.

“If it had been possible, Miss Manette, that you could have

returned the love of the man you see before youself-flung away,

wasted, drunken, poor creature of misuse as you know him to be

he would have been conscious this day and hour, in spite of his

happiness, that he would bring you to misery, bring you to sorrow

and repentance, blight you, disgrace you, pull you down with him.

I know very well that you can have no tenderness for me; I ask for

none; I am even thankful that it cannot be.”

“Without it, can I not save you, Mr. Carton? Can I not recall

youforgive me again!to a better course? Can I in no way repay

your confidence? I know this is a confidence,” she modestly said,

after a little hesitation, and in earnest tears, “I know you would

say this to no one else. Can I turn it to no good account for

yourself, Mr. Carton?”

He shook his head.

“To none. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear me

through a very little more, all you can ever do for me is done. I

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. In

my degradation I have not been so degraded but that the sight of

you with your father, and of this home made such a home by you,

has stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me. Since I

knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would

never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old

voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I

have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew,

shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned

fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the

sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you

inspired it.”

“Will nothing of it remain? O Mr. Carton, think again! Try

again!”

“No, Miss Manette; all through it, I have known myself to be

quite undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still

the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery

you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into firea fire, however,

inseparable in its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting

nothing, doing no service, idly burning away.”

“Since it is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to have made you more

unhappy than you were before you knew me”

“Don’t say that, Miss Manette, for you would have reclaimed

me, if anything could. You will not be the cause of my becoming

worse.”

“Since the state of your mind that you describe, is, at all events,

attributable to some influence of minethat is what I mean, if I

can make it plaincan I use no influence to serve you? Have I no

power for good, with you, at all?”

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

“The utmost good that I am capable of now, Miss Manette, I