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1On Sundays, Miss Pross dined at the Doctor's table, but on other days persisted in taking her meals at unknown periods,
2either in the lower regions, or in her own room on the second floor--a blue chamber, to which no one but her Ladybird
3ever gained admittance. On this occasion, Miss Pross, responding to Ladybird's pleasant face and pleasant efforts to
4please her, unbent exceedingly; so the dinner was very pleasant, too. It was an oppressive day, and, after dinner, Lucie
5proposed that the wine should be carried out under the plane-tree, and they should sit there in the air. As everything
6turned upon her, and revolved about her, they went out under the plane-tree, and she carried the wine down for the
7special benefit of Mr. Lorry. She had installed herself, some time before, as Mr. Lorry's cup-bearer; and while they sat
8under the plane-tree, talking, she kept his glass replenished. Mysterious backs and ends of houses peeped at them as
9they talked, and the plane-tree whispered to them in its own way above their heads. Still, the Hundreds of people did
10not present themselves. Mr. Darnay presented himself while they were sitting under the plane-tree, but he was only One.
11Doctor Manette received him kindly, and so did Lucie. But, Miss Pross suddenly became afflicted with a twitching in the
12head and body, and retired into the house. She was not unfrequently the victim of this disorder, and she called it, in
13familiar conversation, "a fit of the jerks." The Doctor was in his best condition, and looked specially young. The
14resemblance between him and Lucie was very strong at such times, and as they sat side by side, she leaning on his
15shoulder, and he resting his arm on the back of her chair, it was very agreeable to trace the likeness. He had been
16talking all day, on many subjects, and with unusual vivacity. "Pray, Doctor Manette," said Mr. Darnay, as they sat under
17the plane-tree--and he said it in the natural pursuit of the topic in hand, which happened to be the old buildings of
18London--"have you seen much of the Tower?" "Lucie and I have been there; but only casually. We have seen enough of it,
19to know that it teems with interest; little more." "I have been there, as you remember," said Darnay, with a smile,
20though reddening a little angrily, "in another character, and not in a character that gives facilities for seeing much
21of it. They told me a curious thing when I was there." "What was that?" Lucie asked. "In making some alterations, the
22workmen came upon an old dungeon, which had been, for many years, built up and forgotten. Every stone of its inner wall
23was covered by inscriptions which had been carved by prisoners--dates, names, complaints, and prayers. Upon a corner
24stone in an angle of the wall, one prisoner, who seemed to have gone to execution, had cut as his last work, three
25letters. They were done with some very poor instrument, and hurriedly, with an unsteady hand. At first, they were read
26as D. I. C.; but, on being more carefully examined, the last letter was found to be G. There was no record or legend of
27any prisoner with those initials, and many fruitless guesses were made what the name could have been. At length, it was
28suggested that the letters were not initials, but the complete word, DIG. The floor was examined very carefully under
29the inscription, and, in the earth beneath a stone, or tile, or some fragment of paving, were found the ashes of a
30paper, mingled with the ashes of a small leathern case or bag. What the unknown prisoner had written will never be read,
31but he had written something, and hidden it away to keep it from the gaoler." "My father," exclaimed Lucie, "you are
32ill!" He had suddenly started up, with his hand to his head. His manner and his look quite terrified them all. "No, my
33dear, not ill. There are large drops of rain falling, and they made me start. We had better go in." He recovered himself
34almost instantly. Rain was really falling in large drops, and he showed the back of his hand with rain-drops on it. But,
35he said not a single word in reference to the discovery that had been told of, and, as they went into the house, the
36business eye of Mr. Lorry either detected, or fancied it detected, on his face, as it turned towards Charles Darnay, the
37same singular look that had been upon it when it turned towards him in the passages of the Court House. He recovered
38himself so quickly, however, that Mr. Lorry had doubts of his business eye. The arm of the golden giant in the hall was
39not more steady than he was, when he stopped under it to remark to them that he was not yet proof against slight
40surprises (if he ever would be), and that the rain had startled him. Tea-time, and Miss Pross making tea, with another
41fit of the jerks upon her, and yet no Hundreds of people. Mr. Carton had lounged in, but he made only Two. The night was
42so very sultry, that although they sat with doors and windows open, they were overpowered by heat. When the tea-table
43was done with, they all moved to one of the windows, and looked out into the heavy twilight. Lucie sat by her father;
44Darnay sat beside her; Carton leaned against a window. The curtains were long and white, and some of the thunder-gusts
45that whirled into the corner, caught them up to the ceiling, and waved them like spectral wings. "The rain-drops are
46still falling, large, heavy, and few," said Doctor Manette. "It comes slowly." "It comes surely," said Carton. They
47spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do; as people in a dark room, watching and waiting for Lightning,
48always do. There was a great hurry in the streets of people speeding away to get shelter before the storm broke; the
49wonderful corner for echoes resounded with the echoes of footsteps coming and going, yet not a footstep was there. "A
50multitude of people, and yet a solitude!" said Darnay, when they had listened for a while. "Is it not impressive, Mr.
51Darnay?" asked Lucie. "Sometimes, I have sat here of an evening, until I have fancied--but even the shade of a foolish
52fancy makes me shudder to-night, when all is so black and solemn--" "Let us shudder too. We may know what it is." "It
53will seem nothing to you. Such whims are only impressive as we originate them, I think; they are not to be communicated.
54I have sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made the echoes out to be the echoes of all the
55footsteps that are coming by-and-bye into our lives." "There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if that be
56so," Sydney Carton struck in, in his moody way. The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became more and more
57rapid. The corner echoed and re-echoed with the tread of feet; some, as it seemed, under the windows; some, as it
58seemed, in the room; some coming, some going, some breaking off, some stopping altogether; all in the distant streets,
59and not one within sight. "Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss Manette, or are we to divide them
60among us?" "I don't know, Mr. Darnay; I told you it was a foolish fancy, but you asked for it. When I have yielded
61myself to it, I have been alone, and then I have imagined them the footsteps of the people who are to come into my life,
62and my father's." "I take them into mine!" said Carton. "I ask no questions and make no stipulations. There is a great
63crowd bearing down upon us, Miss Manette, and I see them--by the Lightning." He added the last words, after there had
64been a vivid flash which had shown him lounging in the window. "And I hear them!" he added again, after a peal of
65thunder. "Here they come, fast, fierce, and furious!" It was the rush and roar of rain that he typified, and it stopped
66him, for no voice could be heard in it. A memorable storm of thunder and lightning broke with that sweep of water, and
67there was not a moment's interval in crash, and fire, and rain, until after the moon rose at midnight. The great bell of
68Saint Paul's was striking one in the cleared air, when Mr. Lorry, escorted by Jerry, high-booted and bearing a lantern,
69set forth on his return-passage to Clerkenwell. There were solitary patches of road on the way between Soho and
70Clerkenwell, and Mr. Lorry, mindful of foot-pads, always retained Jerry for this service: though it was usually
71performed a good two hours earlier. "What a night it has been! Almost a night, Jerry," said Mr. Lorry, "to bring the
72dead out of their graves." "I never see the night myself, master--nor yet I don't expect to--what would do that,"
73answered Jerry. "Good night, Mr. Carton," said the man of business. "Good night, Mr. Darnay. Shall we ever see such a
74night again, together!" Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great crowd of people with its rush and roar, bearing down upon them,
75too.
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