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In such risings of fire

and risings of sea--the firm earth shaken by the rushes of an angry ocean which had now no

ebb, but was always on the flow, higher and higher, to the tenor and wonder of the

beholders on the shore--three years of tempest were consumed. Three more birthdays of

little Lucie had been woven by the golden thread into the peaceful tissue of the life of

her home.

Many a night and many a day had its inmates listened to the echoes in the corner, with

hearts that failed them when they heard the thronging feet. For, the footsteps had become

to their minds as the footsteps of a people, tumultuous under a red flag and

with their country declared in danger, changed into wild beasts, by terrible enchantment

long persisted in.

Monseigneur, as a class, had dissociated himself from the phenomenon of his not being

appreciated: of his being so little wanted in France, as to incur considerable danger of

receiving his dismissal from it, and this life together. Like the fabled rustic who raised

the Devil with infinite pains, and was so terrified at the sight of him that he could ask

the Enemy no question, but immediately fled; so, Monseigneur, after boldly reading the

Lord's Prayer backwards for a great number of years, and performing many other potent

spells for compelling the Evil One, no sooner beheld him in his terrors than he took to

his noble heels.

The shining Bull's Eye of the Court was gone, or it would have been the mark for a

hurricane of national bullets. It had never been a good eye to see with--had long had the

mote in it of Lucifer's pride, Sardanapalus's luxury, and a mole's blindness--but it had

dropped out and was gone. The Court, from that exclusive inner circle to its outermost

rotten ring of intrigue, corruption, and dissimulation, was all gone together. Royalty was

gone; had been besieged in its Palace and `suspended,' when the last tidings came over.

The August of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two was come, and Monseigneur

was by this time scattered far and wide.

As was natural, the head-quarters and great gathering-place of Monseigneur, in London, was

Tellson's Bank. Spirits are supposed to haunt the places where their bodies most resorted,

and Monseigneur without a guinea haunted the spot where his guineas used to be. Moreover,

it was the spot to which such French intelligence as was most to be relied upon, came

quickest. Again: Tellson's was a munificent house, and extended great liberality to old

customers who had fallen from their high estate. Again: those nobles who had seen the

coming storm in time, and anticipating plunder or confiscation, had made provident

remittances to Tellson's, were always to be heard of there by their needy brethren. To

which it must be added that every new comer from France reported himself and his tidings

at Tellson's, almost as a matter of course. For such variety of reasons,

Tellson's was at that time, as to French intelligence, a kind of High Exchange; and this

was so well known to the public, and the inquiries made there were in consequence so

numerous, that Tellson's sometimes wrote the latest news out in a line or so and posted it

in the Bank windows, for all who ran through Temple Bar to read.

On a steaming, misty afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his desk, and Charles Darnay stood

leaning on it, talking with him in a low voice. The penitential den once set apart for

interviews with the House, was now the news-Exchange, and was filled to overflowing. It

was within half an hour or so of the time of closing.

`But, although you are the youngest man that ever lived,' said Charles Darnay, rather

hesitating, `I must still suggest to you---'

`I understand. That I am too old?' said Mr. Lorry.

`Unsettled weather, a long journey, uncertain means of travelling, a disorganised country,

a city that may not be even safe for you.'

`My dear Charles,' said Mr. Lorry, with cheerful confidence, you touch some of the reasons

for my going: not for my staying away. It is safe enough for me; nobody will care to

interfere with an old fellow of hard upon four-score when there are so many people there

much better worth interfering with. As to its being a disorganised city, if it were not a

disorganised city there would be no occasion to send somebody from our House here to our

House there, who knows the city and the business, of old, and is in Tellson's confidence.

As to the uncertain travelling, the long journey, and the winter weather, if I were not

prepared to submit myself to a few inconveniences for the sake of Tellson's, after all

these years, who ought to be?'

`I wish I were going myself,' said Charles Darnay, somewhat restlessly, and like one

thinking aloud.

`Indeed! You are a pretty fellow to object and advise!' exclaimed Mr. Lorry. `You wish you

were going yourself? And you a Frenchman born? You are a wise counsellor.'

`My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a Frenchman born, that the thought (which I did not

mean to utter here, however) has passed through my mind often. One cannot help thinking,

having had some sympathy for the miserable people, and having abandoned something to

them,' he spoke here in his former thoughtful manner, `that one might be listened to, and

might have the power to persuade to some restraint. Only last night, after you had left

us, when I was talking to Lucie---'

`When you were talking to Lucie,' Mr. Lorry repeated. `Yes. I wonder you are not ashamed

to mention the name of Lucie! Wishing you were going to France at this time of day!'

`However, I am not going,' said Charles Darnay, with a smile. `It is more to the purpose

that you say you are.'

`And I am, in plain reality. The truth is, my dear Charles,' Mr. Lorry glanced at the

distant House, and lowered his voice, `you can have no conception of the difficulty with

which our business is transacted, and of the peril in which our books and papers over

yonder are involved. The Lord above knows what the compromising consequences would be to

numbers of people, if some of our documents were seized or destroyed; and they might be,

at any time, you know, for who can say that Paris is not set a-fire to-day, or sacked

to-morrow! Now, a judicious selection from these with the least possible delay, and the

burying of them, or otherwise getting of them out of harm's way, is within the power

(without loss of precious time) of scarcely any one but myself, if any one. And shall I

hang back, when Tellson's knows this and says this--Tellson's, whose bread I have eaten

these

sixty years--because I am a little stiff about the joints? Why, I am a boy, sir, to half a

dozen old codgers here!'

`How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr. Lorry.'

`Tut! Nonsense, sir!--And, my dear Charles,' said Mr. Lorry, glancing at the House again,

`you are to remember, that getting things out of Paris at this present time, no matter

what things, is next to an impossibility. Papers and precious matters were this very day

brought to us here (I speak in strict confidence; it is not business-like to whisper it,

even to you), by the strangest bearers you cap imagine, every one of whom had his head

hanging on by a single hair as he passed the Barriers. At another time, our parcels would

come and go, as easily as in business-like Old England; but now, everything is stopped.'

`And do you really go to-night?'

`I really go to-night, for the case has become too pressing to admit of delay.'

`And do you take no one with you?'

`All sorts of people have been proposed to me, but I will have nothing to say to any of

them. I intend to take Jerry. Jerry has been my body-guard on Sunday nights for a long

time past, and I am used to him. Nobody will suspect Jerry of being anything but an

English bull-dog, or of having any design in his head but to fly at anybody who touches

his master.'

`I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry and youthfulness.'

`I must say again, nonsense, nonsense! When I have executed this little commission, I

shall, perhaps, accept Tellson's proposal to retire and live at my ease. Time enough,

then, to think about growing old.'

This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry's usual desk, with Monseigneur swarming within

a yard or two of it, boastful of what he would do to avenge himself on the rascal-people

before long. It was too much the way of Monseigneur under his reverses as a refugee, and

it was much too much the way of native British orthodoxy, to talk of this terrible

Revolution as if it were the one only harvest ever known under the skies that had not been

sown--as if nothing had ever been done, or omitted to be done, that had led to it--as if

observers of the wretched millions in France, and of the misused and perverted resources

that should have made them prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming, years before,

and had not in plain words recorded what they saw. Such vapouring, combined with the

extravagant plots of Monseigneur for the restoration of a state of things that had utterly

exhausted itself, and worn out Heaven and earth as well as itself, was hard to be endured

without some remonstrance by any sane man who knew the truth. And it was such vapouring

all about his ears, like a troublesome confusion of blood in his own head, added to a

latent uneasiness in his mind, which had already made Charles Darnay restless, and which

still kept him so.

Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King's Bench Bar, far on his way to state

promotion, and, therefore, loud on the theme: broaching to Monseigneur, his devices for

blowing the people up and exterminating them from the face of the earth, and doing without

them: and for accomplishing many similar objects akin in their nature to the abolition of

eagles by sprinkling salt on the tails of the race. Him, Darnay heard with a particular

feeling of objection; and Darnay stood divided between going away that he might hear no

more, and remaining to interpose his word, when the thing that was to be went on to shape

itself out.

The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying a soiled and unopened letter before him, asked

if he had yet discovered any traces of the person to whom it was addressed? The House laid

the letter down so close to Darnay that he saw the direction--the more quickly because it

was his own left name. The address, turned into English, ran:

`Very pressing. To Monsieur heretofore the Marquis St. Evrémonde, of France. Confided to the cares of Messrs. Tellson

and Go., Bankers, London, England.'

On the marriage morning, Dr. Manette had made it his one urgent and express request to

Charles Darnay, that the secret of this name should be--unless he, the Doctor, dissolved

the obligation--kept inviolate between them. Nobody else knew it to be his name; his own

wife had no suspicion of the fact; Mr. Lorry could have none.

`No,' said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House; `I have referred it, I think, to everybody

now here, and no one can tell me where this gentleman is to be found.'

The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing the Bank, there was a general set

of the current of talkers past Mr. Lorry's desk. He held the letter out inquiringly; and

Monseigneur looked at it, in the person of this plotting and indignant refugee; and

Monseigneur looked at it, in the person of that plotting and indignant refugee; and This,

That, and The Other, all had something disparaging to say, in French or in English,

concerning the Marquis who was not to be found.

`Nephew, I believe--but in any case degenerate successor--of the polished Marquis who was

murdered,' said one. `Happy to say, I never knew him.'

`A craven who abandoned his post,' said another--this Monseigneur had been got out of

Paris, legs uppermost and half suffocated, in a load of hay--`some years ago.'

`Infected with the new doctrines,' said a third, eyeing the direction through his glass in

passing; `set himself in opposition to the last Marquis, abandoned the estates when he

inherited them, and left them to the ruffian herd. They will recompense him now, I hope,

as he deserves.'

`Hey?' cried the blatant Stryver. `Did he though? Is that the sort of fellow? Let us look

at his infamous name. D--n the fellow!'

Darnay, unable to restrain himself any longer, touched Mr. Stryver on the shoulder, and

said:

`I know the fellow.'

`Do you, by Jupiter?' said Stryver. `I am sorry for it.'

`Why?'

`Why, Mr. Darnay? D'ye hear what he did? Don't ask, why, in these times.'

`But I do ask why.'

`Then I tell you again, Mr. Darnay, I am sorry for it. I am sorry to hear you putting any

such extraordinary questions. Here is a fellow, who, infected by the most pestilent and

blasphemous code of devilry that ever was known, abandoned his property to the vilest scum

of the earth that ever did murder by wholesale, and you ask me why I am sorry that a man

who instructs youth knows him? Well, but I'll answer you. I am sorry because I believe

there is contamination in such a scoundrel. That's why.'

Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked himself, and said: `You may

not understand the gentleman.'

`I understand how to put you in a corner, Mr. Darnay,' said Bully Stryver, `and I'll do

it. If this fellow is a gentleman, I don't understand him. You may tell him so, with my

compliments. You may also tell him, from me, that after abandoning his worldly goods and

position to this butcherly mob, I wonder he is not at the head of them. But, no,

gentlemen,' said Stryver, looking all round, and snapping his fingers, `I know something

of human nature, and I tell you that you'll never find a fellow like this fellow, trusting

himself to the mercies of such precious protégés. No, gentlemen; he'll always show `em a clean pair of

heels very early

in the scuffle, and sneak away.'

With those words, and a final snap of his fingers, Mr. Stryver shouldered himself into

Fleet-street, amidst the general approbation of his hearers. Mr. Lorry and Charles Darnay

were left alone at the desk, in the general departure from the Bank.

`Will you take charge of the letter?' said Mr. Lorry. `You know where to deliver it?'

`I do.'

`Will you undertake to explain, that we suppose it to have been addressed here, on the

chance of our knowing where to forward it, and that it has been here some time?'

`I will do so. Do you start for Paris from here?'

`From here, at eight.'

`I will come back, to see you off.'

Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most other men, Darnay made the best

of his way into the quiet of the Temple, opened the letter, and read it. These were its

contents:

`Prison of the Abbaye, Paris.

June 21, 1792.

MONSIEUR HERETOFORE THE MARQUIS,

`After having long been in danger of my life at the hands of the village, I have been

seized, with great violence and indignity, and brought a long journey on foot to Paris. On

the road I have suffered a great deal. Nor is that all; my house has been destroyed--razed

to the ground.

`The crime for which I am imprisoned, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, and for which I

shall be summoned before the tribunal, and shall lose my life (without your so generous

help), is, they tell me, treason against the majesty of the people, in that I have acted

against them for an emigrant. It is in vain I represent that I have acted for them, and

not against, according to your commands. It is in vain I represent that, before the

sequestration of

emigrant property, I had remitted the imposts they had ceased to pay; that I had collected

no rent; that I had had recourse to no process. The only response is, that I have acted

for an emigrant, and where is that emigrant?

`Ah! most gracious Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, where is that emigrant? I cry in my

Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I send my desolate cry across the sea, hoping it may

perhaps reach your ears through the great bank of Tilson known at Paris!

`For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of your noble name, I

supplicate you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, to succour and release me. My fault is,

that I have been true to you. Oh Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I pray you be you true

to me!

`From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearer and nearer to

destruction, I send you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, the assurance of my dolorous and

unhappy service.

`Your afflicted

`GABELLE'

The latent uneasiness in Darnay's mind was roused to vigorous life by this letter. The

peril of an old servant and a good one, whose only crime was fidelity to himself and his

family, stared him so reproachfully in the face, that, as he walked to and fro in the

Temple considering what to do, he almost hid his face from the passers-by.

He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which had culminated the bad deeds and

bad reputation of the old family house, in his resentful suspicions of his uncle, and in

the aversion with which his conscience regarded the crumbling fabric that he was supposed

to uphold, he had acted imperfectly. He knew very well, that in his love for Lucie, his

renunciation of his social place, though by no means new to his own mind, had been hurried

and incomplete. He knew that he ought to have systematically worked it out and supervised

it, and that he had meant to do it, and that it had never been done.

The happiness of his own chosen English home, the necessity of being always actively

employed, the swift changes and troubles of the time which had followed on one another so

fast, that the events of this week annihilated the immature plans of last week, and the

events of the week following made all new again; he knew very well, that to the force of

these circumstances he had yielded :--not without disquiet, but still without continuous

and accumulating resistance. That he had watched the times for a time of action, and that

they had shifted and struggled until the time had gone by, and the nobility were trooping

from France by every highway and byway, and their property was in course of confiscation

and destruction, and their very names were blotting out, was as well known to himself as

it could be to any new authority in France that might impeach him for it.

But, he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man; he was so far from having harshly

exacted payment of his dues, that he had relinquished them of his own will, thrown himself

on a world with no favour in it, won his own private place there, and earned his own

bread. Monsieur Gabelle had held the impoverished and involved estate on written

instructions, to spare the people, to give them what little there was to give--such fuel

as the heavy creditors would let them have in the winter, and such produce as could be

saved from the same grip in the summer--and no doubt he had put the fact in plea and

proof, for his own safety, so that it could not but appear now.

This favoured the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had begun to make, that he would go

to Paris.

Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams had driven him within the

influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it was drawing him to itself, and he must go.

Everything that arose before his mind drifted him on, faster and faster, more and more

steadily, to the terrible attraction. His latent uneasiness had been, that bad aims were

being worked out in his own unhappy land by bad instruments, and that he who could not

fail to know that he was better than they, was not there, trying to do something to stay

bloodshed, and assert the claims of mercy and humanity. With this uneasiness half stifled,

and half reproaching him, he had been brought to the pointed comparison of himself with

the brave old gentleman in whom duty was so strong; upon that comparison (injurious to

himself) had instantly followed the sneers of Monseigneur, which had stung him bitterly,

and those of Stryver, which above all were coarse and galling, for old reasons. Upon

those, had followed Gabelle's letter: the appeal of an innocent prisoner, in danger of

death, to his justice, honour, and good name.

His resolution was made. He must go to Paris.

Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must sail on, until he struck. He knew of

no rock; he saw hardly any danger. The intention with which he had done what he had done,

even although he had left it incomplete, presented it before him in an aspect that would

be gratefully acknowledged in France on his presenting himself to assert it. Then, that

glorious vision of doing good, which is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good

minds, arose before him, and he even saw himself in the illusion with some influence to

guide this raging Revolution that was running so fearfully wild.

As he walked to and fro with his resolution made, he considered that neither Lucie nor her

father must know of it until he was gone. Lucie should be spared the pain of separation;

and her father, always reluctant to turn his thoughts towards the dangerous ground of old,

should come to the knowledge of the step, as a step taken, and not in the balance of

suspense and doubt. How much of the incompleteness of his situation was referable to her

father, through the painful anxiety to avoid reviving old associations of France in his

mind, he did not discuss with himself. But, that circumstance too, had had its influence

in his

course.

He walked to and fro, with thoughts very busy, until it was time to return to Tellson's

and take leave of Mr. Lorry. As soon as he arrived in Paris he would present himself to

this old friend, but he must say nothing of his intention now.

A carriage with post-horses was ready at the Bank door, and Jerry was booted and equipped.

`I have delivered that letter,' said Charles Darnay to Mr. Lorry. `I would not consent to

your being charged with any written answer, but perhaps you will take a verbal one?'

`That I will, and readily,' said Mr. Lorry, `if it is not dangerous.'

`Not at all. Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye.'

`What is his name?' said Mr. Lorry, with his open pocket-book in his hand.

`Gabelle.'

`Gabelle. And what is the message to the unfortunate Gabelle in prison?'

`Simply, "that he has received the letter, and will come."'

`Any time mentioned?'

`He will start upon his journey to-morrow night.'

`Any person mentioned?'

`No.'

He helped Mr. Lorry to wrap himself in a number of coats and cloaks, and went out with him

from the warm atmosphere of the old Bank, into the misty air of Fleet-street. `My love to

Lucie, and to little Lucie,' said Mr. Lorry at parting, `and take precious care of them

till I come back.' Charles Darnay shook his head and doubtfully smiled, as the carriage

rolled away.

That night--it was the fourteenth of August--he sat up late, and wrote two fervent

letters; one was to Lucie, explaining the strong obligation he was under to go to Paris,

and showing her, at length, the reasons that he had, for feeling confident that he could

become involved in no personal danger there; the other was to the Doctor, confiding Lucie

and their dear child to his care, and dwelling on the same topics with the strongest

assurances. To both, he wrote that he would despatch letters in proof of his safety,

immediately after his arrival.

It was a hard day, that day of being among them, with the first reservation of their joint

lives on his mind. It was a hard matter to preserve the innocent deceit of which they were

profoundly unsuspicious. But, an affectionate glance at his wife, so happy and busy, made

him resolute not to tell her what impended (he had been half moved to do it, so strange it

was to him to act in anything without her quiet aid), and the day passed quickly away.

Early in the evening he embraced her, and her scarcely less dear namesake, pretending that

he would return by-and-by (an imaginary engagement took him out, and he had secreted a

valise of clothes ready), and so he emerged into the heavy mist of the heavy streets, with

a heavier heart.

The unseen force was drawing him fast to itself, now, and all the tides and winds were

setting straight and strong towards it. He left his two letters with a trusty porter, to

be delivered half an hour before midnight, and no sooner; took horse for Dover; and began

his journey. `For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of your

noble name!' was the poor prisoner's cry with which he strengthened his sinking heart, as

he left all that was dear on earth behind him, and floated away for the Loadstone Rock.

THE END OF THE SECOND BOOK

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