much staining blood, those feet had come to meet that water.

Madame Defarge looked coldly at her, and said. “The wife of

Evremonde; where is she?”

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It flashed upon Miss Pross’s mind that the doors were all

standing open, and would suggest the flight. Her first act was to

shut them. There were four in the room, and she shut them all.

She then placed herself before the door of the chamber which

Lucie had occupied.

Madame Defarge’s dark eyes followed her through this rapid

movement, and rested on her when it was finished. Miss Pross had

nothing beautiful about her; years had not tamed the wildness, or

softened the grimness, of her appearance; but, she too was a

determined woman in her different way, and she measured

Madame Defarge with her eyes, every inch.

“You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said

Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the

better of me. I am an Englishwoman.”

Madame Defarge looked at her scornfully, but still with

something of Miss Pross’s own perception that they two were at

bay. She saw a tight, hard, wiry woman before her, as Mr. Lorry

had seen in the same figure a woman with a strong hand, in the

years gone by. She knew full well that Miss Pross was the family’s

devoted friend; Miss Pross knew full well that Madame Defarge

was the family’s malevolent enemy.

“On my way yonder,” said Madame Defarge, with a slight

movement of her hand towards the fatal spot, “where they reserve

my chair and my knitting for me, I am come to make my

compliments to her in passing. I wish to see her.”

“I know that your intentions are evil,” said Miss Pross, “and

you may depend upon it, I’ll hold my own against them.”

Each spoke in her own language; neither understood the

other’s words; both were very watchful, and intent to deduce from

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look and manner, what the unintelligible words meant.

“It will do her no good to keep herself concealed from me at this

moment,” said Madame Defarge. “Good patriots will know what

that means. Let me see her. Go tell her that I wish to see her. Do

you hear?”

“If those eyes of yours were bed-winches,” returned Miss Pross,

“and I was an English four-poster, they shouldn’t loose a splinter

of me. No, you wicked foreign woman; I am your match.”

Madame Defarge was not likely to follow these idiomatic

remarks in detail; but, she so far understood them as to perceive

that she was set at naught.

“Woman imbecile and pig-like!” said Madame Defarge,

frowning. “I take no answer from you. I demand to see her. Either

tell her that I demand to see her, or stand out of the way of the

door and let me go to her!” This, with an angry explanatory wave

of her right arm.