were not confirmed in me.”

“I understand the feeling!” exclaimed Carton, with a bright

flush. “And you are the better for it?”

“I hope so.”

Carton terminated the conversation here, by rising to help him

on with his outer coat. “But you,” said Mr. Lorry, reverting to the

theme, “you are young.”

“Yes,” said Carton. “I am not old, but my young way was never

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the way to age. Enough of me.”

“And of me, I am sure,” said Mr. Lorry. “Are you going out?”

“I’ll walk with you to her gate. You know my vagabond and

restless habits. If I should prowl about the streets a long time,

don’t be uneasy; I shall reappear in the morning. You go to the

Court tomorrow?”

“Yes, unhappily.”

“I shall be there, but only as one of the crowd. My Spy will find

a place for me. Take my arm, sir.”

Mr. Lorry did so, and they went down-stairs and out in the

streets. A few minutes brought them to Mr. Lorry’s destination.

Carton left him there; but lingered at a little distance, and turned

back to the gate again when it was shut, and touched it. He had

heard of her going to the prison every day. “She came out here,”

he said, looking about him, “turned this way, must have trod on

these stones often. Let me follow in her steps.”

It was ten o’clock at night when he stood before the prison of La

Force, where she had stood hundreds of times. A little woodsawyer,

having closed his shop, was smoking his pipe at his shopdoor.

“Good night, citizen,” said Sydney Carton, pausing in going by;

for the man eyed him inquisitively.

“Good night, citizen.”

“How goes the Republic?”

“You mean the Guillotine. Not ill. Sixty-three today. We shall

mount to a hundred soon. Samson and his men complain

sometimes, of being exhausted. Ha, ha, ha! He is so droll, that

Samson. Such a barber!”

“Do you often go to see him” “Shave? Always. Every day.

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What a barber! You have seen him at work?”

“Never.”

“Go and see him when he has a good batch. Figure this to

yourself, citizen; he shaved the sixty-three today, in less than two

pipes. Less than two pipes. Word of honour!”

As the grinning little man held out the pipe he was smoking to

explain how he timed the execution, Carton was so sensible of a

rising desire to strike the life out of him, that he turned away.

“But you are not English,” said the wood-sawyer, “though you

wear English dress?”

“Yes,” said Carton, pausing again, and answering over his

shoulder.