minutes, he had got up again, and haunted that
neighbourhood.

On a day in August, when Mr. Stryver (after
notifying to his jackal that "he had thought
better of that marrying matter") had carried
his delicacy into Devonshire, and when the
sight and scent of flowers in the City streets
had some waifs of goodness in them for the
worst, of health for the sickliest, and of youth
for the oldest, Sydney's feet still trod those
stones. From being irresolute and purposeless
his feet became animated by an intention, and,
in the working out of that intention, they took
him to the Doctor's door.

He was shown up-stairs, and found Lucie
at her work, alone. She had never been
quite at her ease with him, and received him
with some little embarrassment as he seated
himself near her table. But, looking up at his
face in the interchange of the first few commonplaces,
she observed a change in it.

"I fear you are not well, Mr. Carton!"

"No. But the life I lead, Miss Manette, is not
conducive to health. What is to be expected
of, or by, such profligates?"

"Is it not—forgive me; I have begun the
question on my lips—a pity to live no better life?"

"God knows it is a shame!"

"Then why not change it?"

Looking gently at him again, she was
surprised and saddened to see that there were tears
in his eyes. There were tears in his voice too,
as he answered:

"It is too late for that. I shall never be
better than I am. I shall sink lower, and be
worse."

He leaned an elbow on her table, and covered
his eyes with his hand. The table trembled in
the silence that followed.

She had never seen him softened, and was
much distressed. He knew her to be so, without
looking at her, and said:

"Pray forgive me, Miss Manette. I break
down before the knowledge of what I want to
say to you. Will you hear me?"

"If it will do you any good. Mr. Carton, if it
would make you happier, it would make me very
glad!"

"God bless you for your sweet compassion!"

He unshaded his face after a little while, and
spoke steadily.

"Don't be afraid to hear me. Don't shrink
from anything I say. I am like one who died
young. All my life might have been."

"No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best
part of it might still be; I am sure that you
might be much, much, worthier of yourself."

"Say of you, Miss Manette, and although I
know better—although in the mystery of my
own wretched heart I know better—I shall never
forget it!"

She was pale and trembling. He came to her
relief with a fixed despair of himself which made
the interview unlike any other that could have
been holden.

"If it had been possible, Miss Manette, that
you could have returned the love of the man
you see before you—self-flung away, wasted,
drunken, poor creature of misuse as you
know him to be—he would have been
conscious this day and hour, in spite of his
happiness, that he would bring you to misery, bring
you to sorrow and repentance, blight you,
disgrace you, pull you down with him. I know
very well that you can have no tenderness for
me; I ask for none; I am even thankful that it
cannot be."

"Without it, can I not save you, Mr, Carton?
Can I not recal you—forgive me again!—to a
better course? Can I in no way repay your
confidence? I know this is a confidence," she
modestly said, after a little hesitation, and in
earnest tears, "I know you would say this to
no one else. Can I turn it to no good account
for yourself, Mr. Carton?"

He shook his head.

"To none. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you
will hear me through a very little more, all you
can ever do for me is done. I wish you to know
that you have been the last dream of my soul.
In my degradation, I have not been so degraded
but that the sight of you with your father, and of
this home made such a home by you, has stirred
old shadows that I thought had died out of
me. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by
a remorse that I thought would never reproach
me again, and have heard whispers from old
voices impelling me upward, that I thought were
silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of
striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off
sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the
abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in
nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay
down, but I wish you to know that you
inspired it."

"Will nothing of it remain? O Mr. Carton,
think again! Try again!"

"No, Miss Manette; all through it, I
have known myself to be quite undeserving.
And yet I have had the weakness, and
have still the weakness, to wish you to know
with what a sudden mastery you kindled
me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire—a fire,
however, inseparable in its nature from myself,
quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no
service, idly burning away."

"Since it is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to
have made you more unhappy than you were
before you knew me——"

"Don't say that, Miss Manette, for you would
have reclaimed me, if anything could. You will
not be the cause of my becoming worse."

"Since the state of your mind that you
describe, is, at all events, attributable to some
influence of mine—this is what I mean, if I can
make it plain—can I use no influence to serve
you? Have I no power for good, with you, at all?"

"The utmost good that I am capable of now,
Miss Manette, I have come here to realise. Let
me carry through the rest of my misdirected
life, the remembrance that I opened my heart to
you, last of all the world; and that there was
something left in me at this time which you
could deplore and pity."