the stain dyeing those trifles through and
through. Hatchets, knives, bayonets, swords,
all brought to be sharpened, were all red with
it. Some of the hacked swords were tied to
the wrists of those who carried them, with strips
of linen and fragments of dress: ligatures various
in kind, but all deep of the one colour. And as
the frantic wielders of these weapons snatched
them from the stream of sparks and tore away
into the streets, the same red hue was red in
their frenzied eyes;—eyes which any
unbrutalised beholder would have given twenty
years of life, to petrify with a well-directed
gun.

All this was seen in a moment, as the vision
of a drowning man, or of any human creature at
any very great pass, could see a world if it were
there. They drew back from the window, and
the doctor looked for explanation in his friend's
ashy face.

"They are," Mr. Lorry whispered the words
glancing fearfully round at the locked room,
"Murdering the prisoners. If you are sure of
what you say; if you really have the power you
think you have—as I believe you have—make
yourself known to these devils, and get taken to
La Force. It may be too late, I don't know,
but let it not be a minute later!"

Doctor Manette pressed his hand, hastened
bareheaded out of the room, and was in
the court-yard when Mr. Lorry regained the
blind.

His streaming white hair, his remarkable face,
and the impetuous confidence of his manner, as
he put the weapons aside like water, carried him
in an instant to the heart of the concourse at
the stone. For a few moments there was a
pause, and a hurry, and a murmur, and the
unintelligible sound of his voice; and then Mr.
Lorry saw him, surrounded by all, and in the
midst of a line twenty men long, all linked
shoulder to shoulder, and hand to shoulder,
hurried out with cries of "Live the Bastille
prisoner! Help for the Bastille prisoner's
kindred in La Force! Room, for the Bastille
prisoner in front there! Save the prisoner
Evrémonde at La Force!" and a thousand
answering shouts.

He closed the lattice again with a fluttering
heart, closed the window and the curtain,
hastened to Lucie, and told her that her father
was assisted by the people, and gone in search
of her husband. He found her child and
Miss Pross with her; but, it never occurred
to him to be surprised by their appearance
until a long time afterwards, when he sat
watching them in such quiet as the night
knew.

Lucie had, by that time, fallen into a stupor
on the floor at his feet, clinging to his hand.
Miss Pross had laid the child down on his own
bed, and her head had gradually fallen on the
pillow beside her pretty charge. O the long,
long night, with the moans of the poor wife.
And O the long, long night, with no return of her
father and no tidings!

Twice more in the darkness the bell at the
great gate sounded, and the irruption was
repeated, and the grindstone whirled and
spluttered. "What is it?" cried Lucie, affrighted.
"Hush! The soldiers' swords are sharpened
there," said Mr. Lorry. "The place is National
property now, and used as a kind of armoury, my
love."

Twice more in all; but, the last spell of work
was feeble and fitful. Soon afterwards the day
began to dawn, and he softly detached himself
from the clasping hand, and cautiously looked
out again. A man, so besmeared that he might
have been a sorely wounded soldier creeping
back to consciousness on a field of slain, was
rising from the pavement by the side of the
grindstone, and looking about him with a
vacant air. Shortly, this worn-out murderer
descried in the imperfect light one of the
carriages of Monseigneur, and, staggering to
that gorgeous vehicle, climbed in at the door,
and shut himself up to take his rest on its
dainty cushions.

The great grindstone, Earth, had turned
when Mr. Lorry looked out again, and the sun
was red on the court-yard. But, the lesser
grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning
air, with a red upon it that the sun had never
given, and would never take away.

CHAPTER III. THE SHADOW.

ONE of the first considerations which arose in
the business mind of Mr. Lorry when business
hours came round, was this:—that he had no right
to imperil Tellson's, by sheltering the wife of an
emigrant prisoner under the Bank roof. His
own possessions, safety, life, he would have
hazarded for Lucie and her child, without a
moment's demur; but, the great trust he held
was not his own, and as to that business charge
he was a strict man of business.

At first, his mind reverted to Defarge, and he
thought of finding out the wine-shop again and
taking counsel with its master in reference to
the safest dwelling-place in the distracted state
of the city. But, the same consideration
that suggested him, repudiated him; he lived
in the most violent Quarter, and doubtless
was influential there, and deep in its dangerous
workings.

Noon coming, and the Doctor not returning,
and every minute's delay tending to compromise
Tellson's, Mr. Lorry advised with Lucie. She
said that her father had spoken of hiring a
lodging for a short term, in that Quarter, near
the Banking-house. As there was no business
objection to this, and as he foresaw that even
if it were all well with Charles, and he were to
be released, he could not hope to leave the city, Mr.
Lorry went out in quest of such a lodging, and
found a suitable one, high up in a removed
by-street where the closed blinds in all the other
windows of a high melancholy square of buildings
marked deserted homes.

To this lodging he at once removed Lucie and
her child, and Miss Pross: giving them what
comfort he could, and much more than he had