people hadthat when the knife struck home, the faces changed,

from faces of pride to faces of anger and pain; also, that when that

dangling figure was hauled up forty feet above the fountain, they

changed again, and bore a cruel look of being avenged, which they

would henceforth bear for ever. In the stone face over the great

window of the bed-chamber where the murder was done, two fine

dints were pointed out in the sculptured nose, which everybody

recognised, and which nobody had seen of old; and on the scarce

occasions when two or three ragged peasants emerged from the

crowd to take a hurried peep at Monseigneur the Marquis

petrified, a skinny finger would not have pointed to it for a minute,

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before they all started away among the moss and leaves, like the

more fortunate hares who could find a living there.

Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain

on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well

thousands of acres of landa whole province of Franceall

France itselflay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint

hairbreadth line. So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses

and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human

knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the manner of its

composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble

shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and

virtue, of every responsible creature on it.

The Defarges, husband and wife, came lumbering under the

starlight, in their public vehicle, to that gate of Paris whereunto

their journey naturally tended. There was the usual stoppage at

the barrier guardhouse, and the usual lanterns came glancing

forth for the usual examination and inquiry. Monsieur Defarge

alighted; knowing one or two of the soldiery there, and one of the

police. The latter he was intimate with, and affectionately

embraced.

When Saint Antoine had again enfolded the Defarges in his

dusky wings, and they, having finally alighted near the Saint’s

boundaries, were picking their way on foot through the black mud

and offal of his streets, Madame Defarge spoke to her husband:

“Say then, my friend; what did Jacques of the police tell thee?”

“Very little tonight, but all he knows. There is another spy

commissioned for our quarter. There may be many more, for all

that he can say, but he knows of one.”

“Eh well!” said Madame Defarge, raising her eye brows with a

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cool business air. “It is necessary to register him. How do they call

that man?”

“He is English.”

“So much the better. His name?”

“Barsad,” said Defarge, making it French by pronunciation.

But he had been so careful to get it accurately, that he then spelt it

with perfect correctness.

“Barsad,” repeated madame. “Good. Christian name?”