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 right name. The address, turned into
English, ran: "Very pressing. To Monsieur
heretofore the Marquis St. Evrémond, of France,
Confided to the cares of Messrs. Tellson and Co.,
Bankers, London, England."

On the marriage morning, Doctor 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