thicken faster and faster yet, he of course knew now. He could not

but admit to himself that he might not have made this journey, if

he could have foreseen the events of a few days. And yet his

misgivings were not so dark as, imagined by the light of this later

time, they would appear. Troubled as the future was, it was the

unknown future, and in its obscurity there was ignorant hope. The

horrible massacre, days and nights long, which, within a few

rounds of the clock, was to set a great mark of blood upon the

blessed garnering time of harvest, was as far out of his knowledge

as if it had been a hundred thousand years away. The ‘sharp

female newly-born, and called La Guillotine,’ was hardly known to

him, or to the generality of people, by name. The frightful deeds

that were to be soon done, were probably unimagined at that time

in the brains of the doers. How could they have a place in the

shadowy conceptions of a gentle mind?

Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel

separation from his wife and child, he foreshadowed the

likelihood, or the certainty; but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing

distinctly. With this on his mind, which was enough to carry him

into a dreary prison courtyard, he arrived at the prison of La

Force.

A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to whom

Defarge presented “The Emigrant Evremonde.”

“What the Devil! How many more of them!” exclaimed the man

with the bloated face.

Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation, and

withdrew, with his two fellow-patriots.

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“What the Devil, I say again!” exclaimed the gaoler, left with his

wife. “How many more!”

The gaoler’s wife, being provided with no answer to the

question, merely replied, “One must have patience, my dear!”

Three turnkeys who entered responsive to a bell she rang, echoed

the sentiment, and one added, “For the love of Liberty”; which

sounded in that place like an inappropriate conclusion.

The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and filthy,

and with a horrible smell of foul sleep in it. Extraordinary how

soon the noisome flavour of imprisoned sleep, becomes manifest

in all such places that are ill cared for!

“In secret, too,” grumbled the gaoler, looking at the written

paper. “As if I was not already full to bursting!”

He stuck the paper on a file, in an ill-humour, and Charles

Darnay awaited his further pleasure for half an hour: sometimes,

pacing to and fro in the strong arched room: sometimes, resting on

a stone seat: in either case detained to be imprinted on the

memory of the chief and his subordinates.

“Come!” said the chief, at length taking up his keys, “come with

me, Emigrant.”

Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge

accompanied him by corridor and staircase, many doors clanging