to have come over the Doctor; as if the golden
arm uplifted there, had struck him a poisoned
blow.

He had naturally repressed much, and some
revulsion might have been expected in him when
the occasion for repression was gone. But, it
was the old scared lost look that troubled Mr.
Lorry; and through his absent manner of clasping
his head and drearily wandering away into his
own room when they got up-stairs, Mr. Lorry was
reminded of Defarge the wine-shop keeper, and
the starlight ride.

"I think," he whispered to Miss Pross, after
anxious consideration, "I think we had best not
speak to him just now, or at all disturb him.
I must look in at Tellson's; so I will go there
at once and come back presently. Then, we will
take him a ride into the country, and dine there,
and all will be well."

It was easier for Mr. Lorry to look in at
Tellson's, than to look out of Tellson's. He
was detained two hours. When he came
back, he ascended the old staircase alone, having
asked no question of the servant; going
thus into the Doctor's rooms, he was stopped
by a low sound of knocking.

"Good God!" he said, with a start. "What's
that?"

Miss Pross, with a terrified face, was at his
ear. "O me, O me! All is lost!" cried she,
wringing her hands. "What is to be told to
Ladybird? He doesn't know me, and is making
shoes!"

Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her,
and went himself into the Doctor's room. The
bench was turned towards the light, as it had
been when he had seen the shoemaker at his work
before, and his head was bent down, and he was
very busy.

"Doctor Manette. My dear friend, Doctor
Manette!"

The Doctor looked at him for a moment—half
inquiringly, half as if he were angry at being
spoken to—and bent over his work again.

He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat;
his shirt was open at the throat, as it used to be
when he did that work; and even the old haggard,
faded surface of face had come back to him. He
worked hard—impatiently—as if in some sense
of having been interrupted.

Mr. Lorry glanced at the work in his hand,
and observed that it was a shoe of the old size
and shape. He took up another that was lying
by him, and asked him what it was?

"A young lady's walking shoe," he muttered,
without looking up. "It ought to have been
finished long ago. Let it be."

"But, Doctor Manette. Look at me!"

He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive
manner, without pausing in his work.

"You know me, my dear friend? Think
again. This is not your proper occupation.
Think, dear friend!"

Nothing would induce him to speak more.
He looked up, for an instant at a time, when he
was requested to do so; but, no persuasion would
extract a word from him. He worked, and
worked, and worked, in silence, and words fell
on him as they would have fallen on an echoless
wall, or on the air. The only ray of hope that
Mr. Lorry could discover, was, that he sometimes
furtively looked up without being asked. In that,
there seemed a faint expression of curiosity or
perplexity—as though he were trying to reconcile
some doubts in his mind.

Two things at once impressed themselves on
Mr. Lorry, as important above all others; the
first, that this must be kept secret from Lucie;
the second, that it must be kept secret from all
who knew him. In conjunction with Miss Pross,
he took immediate steps towards the latter
precaution, by giving out that the Doctor was not
well, and required a few days of complete rest.
In aid of the kind deception to be practised on
his daughter, Miss Pross was to write, describing
his having been called away professionally, and
referring to an imaginary letter of two or three
hurried lines in his own hand, represented to
have been addressed to her by the same post.

These measures, advisable to be taken in any
case, Mr. Lorry took in the hope of his coming
to himself. If that should happen soon, he kept
another course in reserve; which was, to have a
certain opinion that he thought the best, on the
Doctor's case.

In the hope of his recovery, and of resort to
this third course being thereby rendered practicable,
Mr. Lorry resolved to watch him attentively,
with as little appearance as possible of
doing so. He therefore made arrangements to
absent himself from Tellson's for the first time
in his life, and took his post by the window in
the same room.

He was not long in discovering that it was
worse than useless to speak to him, since, on
being pressed, he became worried. He abandoned
that attempt on the first day, and resolved
merely to keep himself always before him, as a
silent protest against the delusion into which he
had fallen, or was falling. He remained, therefore,
in his seat near the window, reading and
writing, and expressing in as many pleasant and
natural ways as he could think of, that it was a
free place.

Doctor Manette took what was given him to
eat and drink, and worked on, that first day,
until it was too dark to see—worked on, half an
hour after Mr. Lorry could not have seen, for his
life, to read or write. When he put his tools
aside as useless, until morning, Mr. Lorry rose
and said to him:

"Will you go out?"

He looked down at the floor on either side
of him in the old manner, looked up in the old
manner, and repeated in the old low voice:

"Out?"

"Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?"

He made no effort to say why not, and said
not a word more. But, Mr. Lorry thought he
saw, as he leaned forward on his bench in the
dusk, with his elbows on his knees and his head
in his hands, that he was in some misty way
asking himself, "Why not?" The sagacity of