Mr. Attorney-General now signified to my Lord, that he deemed

it necessary, as a matter of precaution and form, to call the young

lady’s father, Doctor Manette. Who was called accordingly.

“Doctor Manette, look upon the prisoner. Have you ever seen

him before?”

“Once. When he called at my lodgings in London. Some three

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years, or three years and a half ago.”

“Can you identify him as your fellow-passenger on board the

packet, or speak to his conversation with your daughter?”

“Sir, I can do neither.”

“Is there any particular and special reason for your being

unable to do either?”

He answered, in a low voice, “There is.”

“Has it been your misfortune to undergo a long imprisonment,

without trial, or even accusation, in your native country, Doctor

Manette?”

He answered, in a tone that went to every heart, “A long

imprisonment.”

“Were you newly released on the occasion in question?”

“They tell me so.”

“Have you no remembrance of the occasion?”

“None. My mind is a blank, from some timeI cannot even say

what timewhen I employed myself, in my captivity, in making

shoes, to the time when I found myself living in London with my

dear daughter here. She had become familiar to me, when a

gracious God restored my faculties; but, I am unable to say how

she had become familiar. I have no remembrance of the process.”

Mr. Attorney-General sat down, and the father and daughter sat

down together.

A singular circumstance then arose in the case. The object in

hand being to show that the prisoner went down, with some

fellow-plotter untracked, in the Dover mail on that Friday night in

November five years ago, and got out of the mail in the night, as a

blind, at a place where he did not remain, but from which he

travelled back some dozen miles or more, to a garrison and

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dockyard, and there collected information; a witness was called to

identify him as having been at the precise time required, in the

coffee-room of an hotel, in that garrison-and-dockyard town,

waiting for another person. The prisoner’s counsel was crossexamining

this witness with no result, except that he had never

seen the prisoner on any other occasion, when the wigged

gentleman who had all this time been looking at the ceiling of the

court, wrote a word or two on a little piece of paper, screwed it up,

and tossed it to him. Opening this piece of paper in the next pause,

the counsel looked with great attention and curiosity at the

prisoner.

“You say again you are quite sure that it was the prisoner?”

The witness was quite sure.