They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do; as

people in a dark room, watching and waiting for Lightning, always

do.

There was a great hurry in the streets, of people speeding away

to get shelter before the storm broke; the wonderful corner for

echoes resounded with the echoes of footsteps coming and going,

yet not a footstep was there.

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“A multitude of people, and yet a solitude,” said Darnay, when

they had listened for a while.

“Is it not impressive, Mr. Darnay?” asked Lucie. “Sometimes, I

have sat here of an evening, until I have fanciedbut even the

shade of a foolish fancy makes me shudder tonight, when all is so

black and solemn”

“Let us shudder too. We may know what it is.”

“It will seem nothing to you. Such whims are only impressive as

we originate them, I think; they are not to be communicated. I

have sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I

have made the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that

are coming by-and-by into our lives.”

“There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if that be

so,” Sydney Carton struck in, in his moody way.

The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became

more and more rapid. The corner echoed and re-echoed with the

tread of feet; some, as it seemed, under the windows; some, as it

seemed, in the room; some coming, some going, some breaking off,

some stopping altogether; all in the distant streets, and not one

within sight.

“Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss

Manette, or are we to divide them among us?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Darnay; I told you it was a foolish fancy, but

you asked for it. When I have yielded myself to it, I have been

alone, and then I have imagined them the footsteps of the people

who are to come into my life, and my father’s.”

“I take them into mine!” said Carton. “I ask no questions and

make no stipulations. There is a great crowd bearing down upon

us, Miss Manette, and I see themby the Lightning.” He added

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the last words, after there had been a vivid flash which had shown

him lounging in the window.

“And I hear them!” he added again, after a peal of thunder.

“Here they come, fast, fierce, and furious!”

It was the rush and roar of rain that he typified, and it stopped

him, for no voice could be heard in it. A memorable storm of

thunder and lightning broke with that sweep of water, and there

was not a moment’s interval in crash, and fire, and rain, until after

the moon rose at midnight.

The great bell of Saint Paul’s was striking One in the cleared

air, when Mr. Lorry, escorted by Jerry, high-booted and bearing a

lantern, set forth on his return passage to Clerkenwell. There were