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1It was a long, grieving sound, like a sigh--almost like a sob. It attracted Mr. Lorry's eyes to Carton's face, which was
2turned to the fire. A light, or a shade (the old gentleman could not have said which), passed from it as swiftly as a
3change will sweep over a hill-side on a wild bright day, and he lifted his foot to put back one of the little flaming
4logs, which was tumbling forward. He wore the white riding-coat and top-boots, then in vogue, and the light of the fire
5touching their light surfaces made him look very pale, with his long brown hair, all untrimmed, hanging loose about him.
6His indifference to fire was sufficiently remarkable to elicit a word of remonstrance from Mr. Lorry; his boot was still
7upon the hot embers of the flaming log, when it had broken under the weight of his foot. "I forgot it," he said. Mr.
8Lorry's eyes were again attracted to his face. Taking note of the wasted air which clouded the naturally handsome
9features, and having the expression of prisoners' faces fresh in his mind, he was strongly reminded of that expression.
10"And your duties here have drawn to an end, sir?" said Carton, turning to him. "Yes. As I was telling you last night
11when Lucie came in so unexpectedly, I have at length done all that I can do here. I hoped to have left them in perfect
12safety, and then to have quitted Paris. I have my Leave to Pass. I was ready to go." They were both silent. "Yours is a
13long life to look back upon, sir?" said Carton, wistfully. "I am in my seventy-eighth year." "You have been useful all
14your life; steadily and constantly occupied; trusted, respected, and looked up to?" "I have been a man of business, ever
15since I have been a man. Indeed, I may say that I was a man of business when a boy." "See what a place you fill at
16seventy-eight. How many people will miss you when you leave it empty!" "A solitary old bachelor," answered Mr. Lorry,
17shaking his head. "There is nobody to weep for me." "How can you say that? Wouldn't She weep for you? Wouldn't her
18child?" "Yes, yes, thank God. I didn't quite mean what I said." "It is a thing to thank God for; is it not?" "Surely,
19surely." "If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, to-night, 'I have secured to myself the love and
20attachment, the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I have done
21nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by!' your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight heavy curses; would
22they not?" "You say truly, Mr. Carton; I think they would be." Sydney turned his eyes again upon the fire, and, after a
23silence of a few moments, said: "I should like to ask you:--Does your childhood seem far off? Do the days when you sat
24at your mother's knee, seem days of very long ago?" Responding to his softened manner, Mr. Lorry answered: "Twenty years
25back, yes; at this time of my life, no. For, as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle, nearer and
26nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind smoothings and preparings of the way. My heart is touched now,
27by many remembrances that had long fallen asleep, of my pretty young mother (and I so old!), and by many associations of
28the days when what we call the World was not so real with me, and my faults were not confirmed in me." "I understand the
29feeling!" exclaimed Carton, with a bright flush. "And you are the better for it?" "I hope so." Carton terminated the
30conversation here, by rising to help him on with his outer coat; "But you," said Mr. Lorry, reverting to the theme, "you
31are young." "Yes," said Carton. "I am not old, but my young way was never the way to age. Enough of me." "And of me, I
32am sure," said Mr. Lorry. "Are you going out?" "I'll walk with you to her gate. You know my vagabond and restless
33habits. If I should prowl about the streets a long time, don't be uneasy; I shall reappear in the morning. You go to the
34Court to-morrow?" "Yes, unhappily." "I shall be there, but only as one of the crowd. My Spy will find a place for me.
35Take my arm, sir." Mr. Lorry did so, and they went down-stairs and out in the streets. A few minutes brought them to Mr.
36Lorry's destination. Carton left him there; but lingered at a little distance, and turned back to the gate again when it
37was shut, and touched it. He had heard of her going to the prison every day. "She came out here," he said, looking about
38him, "turned this way, must have trod on these stones often. Let me follow in her steps." It was ten o'clock at night
39when he stood before the prison of La Force, where she had stood hundreds of times. A little wood-sawyer, having closed
40his shop, was smoking his pipe at his shop-door. "Good night, citizen," said Sydney Carton, pausing in going by; for,
41the man eyed him inquisitively. "Good night, citizen." "How goes the Republic?" "You mean the Guillotine. Not ill.
42Sixty-three to-day. We shall mount to a hundred soon. Samson and his men complain sometimes, of being exhausted. Ha, ha,
43ha! He is so droll, that Samson. Such a Barber!" "Do you often go to see him--" "Shave? Always. Every day. What a
44barber! You have seen him at work?" "Never." "Go and see him when he has a good batch. Figure this to yourself, citizen;
45he shaved the sixty-three to-day, in less than two pipes! Less than two pipes. Word of honour!" As the grinning little
46man held out the pipe he was smoking, to explain how he timed the executioner, Carton was so sensible of a rising desire
47to strike the life out of him, that he turned away. "But you are not English," said the wood-sawyer, "though you wear
48English dress?" "Yes," said Carton, pausing again, and answering over his shoulder. "You speak like a Frenchman." "I am
49an old student here." "Aha, a perfect Frenchman! Good night, Englishman." "Good night, citizen." "But go and see that
50droll dog," the little man persisted, calling after him. "And take a pipe with you!" Sydney had not gone far out of
51sight, when he stopped in the middle of the street under a glimmering lamp, and wrote with his pencil on a scrap of
52paper. Then, traversing with the decided step of one who remembered the way well, several dark and dirty streets--much
53dirtier than usual, for the best public thoroughfares remained uncleansed in those times of terror--he stopped at a
54chemist's shop, which the owner was closing with his own hands. A small, dim, crooked shop, kept in a tortuous, up-hill
55thoroughfare, by a small, dim, crooked man. Giving this citizen, too, good night, as he confronted him at his counter,
56he laid the scrap of paper before him. "Whew!" the chemist whistled softly, as he read it. "Hi! hi! hi!" Sydney Carton
57took no heed, and the chemist said: "For you, citizen?" "For me." "You will be careful to keep them separate, citizen?
58You know the consequences of mixing them?" "Perfectly." Certain small packets were made and given to him. He put them,
59one by one, in the breast of his inner coat, counted out the money for them, and deliberately left the shop. "There is
60nothing more to do," said he, glancing upward at the moon, "until to-morrow. I can't sleep." It was not a reckless
61manner, the manner in which he said these words aloud under the fast-sailing clouds, nor was it more expressive of
62negligence than defiance. It was the settled manner of a tired man, who had wandered and struggled and got lost, but who
63at length struck into his road and saw its end. Long ago, when he had been famous among his earliest competitors as a
64youth of great promise, he had followed his father to the grave. His mother had died, years before. These solemn words,
65which had been read at his father's grave, arose in his mind as he went down the dark streets, among the heavy shadows,
66with the moon and the clouds sailing on high above him. "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that
67believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."
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