obviously the weakness of the position. There is no help for it.”

“But access to him,” said Mr. Lorry, “if it should go ill before

the Tribunal, will not save him.”

“I never said it would.”

Mr. Lorry’s eyes gradually sought the fire; his sympathy with

his darling, and the heavy disappointment of this second arrest,

gradually weakened them; he was an old man now, overborne

with anxiety of late, and his tears fell.

“You are a good man and a true friend,” said Carton, in an

altered voice. “Forgive me if I notice that you are affected. I could

not see my father weep, and sit by, careless. And I could not

respect your sorrow more, if you were my father. You are free

from that misfortune, however.”

Though he said the last words, with a slip into his usual

manner, there was a true feeling and respect both in his tone and

in his touch, that Mr. Lorry, who had never seen the better side of

him, was wholly unprepared for. He gave him his hand, and

Carton gently pressed it.

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“To return to poor Darnay,” said Carton. “Don’t tell Her of this

interview, or this arrangement. It would not enable Her to go to

see him. She might think it was contrived, in case of the worst, to

convey to him the means of anticipating the sentence.”

Mr. Lorry had not thought of that, and he looked quickly at

Carton to see if it were in his mind. It seemed to be; he returned

the look, and evidently understood it.

“She might think a thousand things,” Carton said, “and any of

them would only add to her trouble. Don’t speak of me to her. As I

said to you when I first came, I had better not see her. I can put

my hand out, to do any little helpful work for her that my hand can

find to do, without that. You are going to her, I hope? She must be

very desolate tonight.”

“I am going now, directly.”

“I am glad of that. She has such a strong attachment to you and

reliance on you. How does she look?”

“Anxious and unhappy, but very beautiful.”

“Ah!”

It was a long, grieving sound, like a sighalmost like a sob. It

attracted Mr. Lorry’s eyes to Carton’s face, which was turned to

the fire. A light, or a shade (the old gentleman could not have said

which), passed from it as swiftly as a change will sweep over a

hillside on a wild bright day, and he lifted his foot to put back one

of the little flaming logs, which was tumbling forward. He wore the

white riding-coat and top-boots, then in vogue, and the light of the

fire touching their light surfaces made him look very pale, with his

long brown hair, all untrimmed, hanging loose about him. His

indifference to fire was sufficiently remarkable to elicit a word of

remonstrance from Mr. Lorry: his boot was still upon the hot

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embers of the flaming log, when it had broken under the weight of