After grasping the Doctor’s hand, as he stood victorious and

proud before him; after grasping the hand of Mr. Lorry, who came

panting in breathless from his struggle against the waterspout of

the Carmagnole; after kissing little Lucie, who was lifted up to

clasp her hands round his neck; and after embracing the ever

zealous and faithful Pross who lifted her; he took his wife in his

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arms, and carried her up to their rooms.

“Lucie! My own! I am safe.”

“O dearest Charles, let me thank God for this on my knees as I

have prayed to Him.”

They all reverently bowed their heads and hearts. When she

was again in his arms, he said to her “And now speak to your

father, dearest. No other man in all this France could have done

what he has done for me.”

She laid her head upon her father’s breast, as she had laid his

poor head on her own breast, long, long ago. He was happy in the

return he had made her, he was recompensed for his suffering, he

was proud of his strength. “You must not be weak, my darling,” he

remonstrated; “don’t tremble so. I have saved him.”

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

Chapter XXXVII

A KNOCK AT THE DOOR

have saved him.” It was not another of the dreams in which

he had often come back; he was really here. And yet his wife

trembled, and a vague but heavy fear was upon her.

All the air round was so thick and dark, the people were so

passionately revengeful and fitful, the innocent were so constantly

put to death on vague suspicion and black malice, it was so

impossible to forget that many as blameless as her husband and as

dear to others as he was to her, every day shared the fate from

which he had been clutched, that her heart could not be as

lightened of its load as she felt it ought to be. The shadows of the

wintry afternoon were beginning to fall, and even now the

dreadful carts were rolling through the streets. Her mind pursued

them, looking for him among the condemned; and then she clung

closer to his real presence and trembled more.

Her father, cheering her, showed a compassionate superiority

to this woman’s weakness, which was wonderful to see. No garret,

no shoemaking, no One Hundred and Five, North Tower, now! He

had accomplished the task he had set himself, his promise was

redeemed, he had saved Charles. Let them all lean upon him.

Their housekeeping was of a very frugal kind: not only because

that was the safest way of life, involving the least offence to the

people, but because they were not rich, and Charles, throughout

his imprisonment, had had to pay heavily for his bad food, and for

his guard, and towards the living of the poorer prisoners. Partly on

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this account, and partly to avoid a domestic spy, they kept no

servant; the citizen and citizeness who acted as porters at the