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`What is this?' cried Mr. Lorry, breathless and confused. `What is the matter? Lucie! Manette! What has happened? What has brought you here? What is it?'
With the look fixed upon him, in her paleness and wildness, she panted out in his arms, imploringly, `O my dear friend! My husband!'
`Your husband, Lucie?'
`Charles.'
`What of Charles?'
`Here.'
`Here, in Paris?'
`Has been here some days--three or four--I don't know how many--I can't collect my thoughts. An errand of generosity brought him here unknown to us; he was stopped at the barrier, and sent to prison.'
The old man uttered an irrepressible cry. Almost at the same moment, the bell of the great gate rang again, and a loud noise of feet and voices came pouring into the court-yard.
`What is that noise?' said the Doctor, turning towards the window.
`Don't look!' cried Mr. Lorry. `Don't look out! Manette, for your life, don't touch the blind!'
The Doctor turned, with his hand upon the fastening of the window, and said, with a cool bold smile:
`My dear friend, I have a charmed life in this city. I have been a Bastille prisoner. There is no patriot in Paris--in Paris? In France--who, knowing me to have been a prisoner in the Bastille, would touch me, except to overwhelm me with embraces, or carry me in triumph. My old pain has given me a power that has brought us through the barrier, and gained us news of Charles there, and brought us here. I knew it would be so; I knew I could help Charles out of all danger; I told Lucie so.--What is that noise?' His hand was again upon the window.
`Don't look!' cried Mr. Lorry, absolutely desperate. `No, Lucie, my dear, nor you!' He got his arm round her, and held her. `Don't be so terrified, my love. I solemnly swear to you that I know of no harm having happened to Charles; that I had no suspicion even of his being in this fatal place. What prison is he in?'
`La Force!'
`La Force! Lucie, my child, if ever you were brave and serviceable in your life--and you were always both--you will compose yourself now, to do exactly as I bid you; for more depends upon it than you can think, or I can say. There is no help for you in any action on your part to-night; you cannot possibly stir out. I say this, because what I must bid you to do for Charles's sake, is the hardest thing to do of all. You must instantly be obedient, still, and quiet. You must let me put you in a room at the back here. You must leave your father and me alone for two minutes, and as there are Life and Death in the world you must not delay.'
`I will be submissive to you. I see in your face that you know I can do nothing else than this. I know you are true.'
The old man kissed her, and hurried her into his room, and turned the key; then, came hurrying back to the Doctor, and opened the window and partly opened the blind, and put his hand upon the Doctor's arm, and looked out with him into the court-yard.
Looked out upon a throng of men and women: not enough in number, or near enough, to fill the court-yard: not more than forty or fifty in all. The people in possession of the house had let them in at the gate, and they had rushed in to work at the grindstone; it had evidently been set up there for their purpose, as in a convenient and retired spot.
But, such awful workers, and such awful work!
