And all the worse for the doomed man, that the denouncer was

a well-known citizen, his own attached friend, the father of his

wife. One of the frenzied aspirations of the populace was, for

imitations of the questionable public virtues of antiquity, and for

sacrifices and self-immolations on the people’s altar. Therefore

when the President said (else had his own head quivered on his

shoulders), that the good physician of the Republic would deserve

better still of the Republic by rooting out an obnoxious family of

Aristocrats, and would doubtless feel a sacred glow and joy in

making his daughter a widow and her child an orphan, there was

wild excitement, patriotic fervour, not a touch of human

sympathy.

“Much influence around him, has that Doctor?” murmured

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Madame Defarge, smiling to The Vengeance. “Save him now, my

Doctor, save him!”

At every juryman’s vote, there was a roar. Another and another.

Roar and roar.

Unanimously voted. At heart and by descent an Aristocrat, an

enemy of the Republic, a notorious oppressor of the People. Back

to the Conciergerie, and Death within four-and-twenty hours!

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ChapterXLI

DUSK

T

he wretched wife of the innocent man thus doomed to die.

fell under the sentence, as if she had been mortally

stricken. But, she uttered no sound; and so strong was the

voice within her, representing that it was she of all the world who

must uphold him in his misery and not augment it, that it quickly

raised her, even from that shock.

The judges having to take part in a public demonstration out of

doors, the tribunal adjourned. The quick noise and movement of

the court’s emptying itself by many passages had not ceased, when

Lucie stood stretching out her arms towards her husband, with

nothing in her face but love and consolation.

“If I might touch him! If I might embrace him once! O, good

citizens, if you would have so much compassion for us!”

There was but a gaoler left, along with two of the four men who

had taken him last night, and Barsad. The people had all poured

out to the show in the streets. Barsad proposed to the rest, “Let

her embrace him then; it is but a moment.” It was silently

acquiesced in, and they passed her over the seats in the hall to a

raised place, where he, by leaning over the dock, could fold her in

his arms.

“Farewell, dear darling of my soul. My parting blessing on my

love. We shall meet again, where the weary are at rest!”

They were her husband’s words, as he held her to his bosom.

“I can bear it, dear Charles. I am supported from above: don’t

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