anchor from the deep, might have been easily found. He did not

seek it, but repeated them and went on.

With a solemn interest in the lighted windows where the people

were going to rest, forgetful through a few calm hours of the

horrors surrounding them; in the towers of the churches, where

no prayers were said, for the popular revulsion had even travelled

that length of self-destruction from years of priestly impostors,

plunderers, and profligates; in the distant burial-places reserved,

as they wrote upon the gates, for Eternal Sleep; in the abounding

gaols; and in the streets along which the sixties rolled to a death

which had become so common and material, that no sorrowful

story of a haunting Spirit ever arose among the people out of all

the working of the Guillotine; with a solemn interest in the whole

life and death of the city settling down to its short nightly pause in

fury; Sydney Carton crossed the Seine again for the lighter streets.

Few coaches were abroad, for riders in coaches were liable to

be suspected, and gentility hid his head in red nightcaps, and put

on heavy shoes, and trudged. But. the theatres were all well filled,

and the people poured cheerfully out as he passed, and went

chatting home. At one of the theatre doors, there was a little girl

with a mother, looking for a way across the street through the

mud. He carried the child over, and before the timid arm was

loosed from his neck asked her for a kiss.

“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that

believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and

whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.”

Now, that the streets were quiet and the night wore on, the

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words were in the echoes of his feet, and were in the air. Perfectly

calm and steady, he sometimes repeated them to himself as he

walked; but, he heard them always.

The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listening

to the water as it splashed the river-walls of the Island of Paris,

where the picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral shone

bright in the light of the moon, the day came coldly, looking like a

dead face out of the sky. Then, the night, with the moon and the

stars, turned pale and died, and for a little while it seemed as if

Creation were delivered over to Death’s dominion.

But the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, that

burden of the night, straight and warm to his heart in its long

bright rays. And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes,

a bridge of light appeared to span the air between him and the

sun, while the river sparkled under it.

The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and certain, was like a

congenial friend, in the morning stillness. He walked by the

stream, far from the houses, and in the light and warmth of the

sun fell asleep on the bank. When he awoke and was afoot again,

he lingered there yet a little longer, watching an eddy that turned

and turned purposeless, until the stream absorbed it, and carried

it on to the sea.“Like me!”