Frenchman, represents himself to his
employers under a false name. That's a very good
card. Mr. Barsad, now in the employ of the
republican French government, was formerly
in the employ of the aristocratic English
government, the enemy of France and freedom.
That's an excellent card. Inference clear as
day in this region of suspicion, that Mr. Barsad,
still in the pay of the aristocratic English
government, is the spy of Pitt, the treacherous
foe of the Republic crouching in its bosom,
the English traitor and agent ot all mischief so
much spoken of and so difficult to find. That's
a card not to be beaten. Have you followed my
hand, Mr. Barsad?"

"Not to understand your play," returned the
spy, somewhat uneasily.

"I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad
to the nearest Section Committee. Look over
your hand, Mr. Barsad, and see what you have.
Don't hurry."

He drew the bottle near, poured out another
glassful of brandy, and drank it off. He saw
that the spy was fearful of his drinking himself
into a fit state for the immediate denunciation
of him. Seeing it, he poured out and drank
another glassful.

"Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad.
Take time."

It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr.
Barsad saw losing cards in it that Sydney Carton
knew nothing of. Thrown out of his honourable
employment in England, through too much
unsuccessful hard swearing there—not because
he was not wanted there; our English reasons
for vaunting our superiority to secrecy and spies
are of very modern date—he knew that he had
crossed the Channel, and accepted service in
France: first, as a tempter and an eavesdropper
among his own countrymen there: gradually, as
a tempter and an eavesdropper among the
natives. He knew that under the overthrown
government he had been a spy upon Saint
Antoine and Defarge's wine-shop; had received
from the watchful police such heads of information
concerning Doctor Manette's imprisonment,
release, and history, as should serve him for
an introduction to familiar conversation with
the Defarges; had tried them on Madame
Defarge, and had broken down with them
signally. He always remembered with fear and
trembling, that that terrible woman had
knitted when he talked with her, and had looked
ominously at him as her fingers moved. He
had since seen her, in the Section of Saint
Antoine, over and over again produce her
knitted registers, and denounce people whose
lives the guillotine then surely swallowed up.
He knew, as every one employed as he was, did,
that he was never safe; that flight was impossible;
that he was tied fast under the shadow
of the axe; and that in spite of his utmost
tergiversation and treachery in furtherance of
the reigning terror, a word might bring it down
upon him. Once denounced, and on such grave
grounds as had just now been suggested to his
mind, he foresaw that the dreadful woman of
whose unrelenting character he had seen many
proofs, would produce against him that fatal
register, and would quash his last chance of
life. Besides that all secret men are men soon
terrified, here were surely cards enough of one
black suit, to justify the holder in growing rather
livid as he turned them over.

"You scarcely seem to like your hand," said
Sydney, with the greatest composure. "Do
you play?"

"I think, sir," said the spy, in the meanest
manner, as he turned to Mr. Lorry, "I may
appeal to a gentleman of your years and benevolence,
to put it to this other gentleman, so much
your junior, whether he can under any circumstance
reconcile it to his station to play that
Ace of which he has spoken. I admit that I am
a spy, and that it is considered a discreditable
station—though it must be filled by somebody;
but this gentleman is no spy, and why
should he so demean himself as to make himself
one?"

"I play my Ace, Mr. Barsad," said Carton,
taking the answer on himself, and looking
at his watch, "without any scruple, in a very
few minutes."

"I should have hoped, gentlemen both," said
the spy, always striving to hook Mr. Lorry into
the discussion, "that your respect for my
sister——"

"I could not better testify my respect for
your sister than by finally relieving her of her
brother," said Sydney Carton.

"You think not, sir?"

"I have thoroughly made up my mind about
it."

The smooth manner of the spy, curiously in
dissonance with his ostentatiously rough dress,
and probably with his usual demeanour, received
such a check from the inscrutability of Carton,
—who was a mystery to wiser and honester men
than he—that it faltered here and failed him.
While he was at a loss. Carton said, resuming his
former air of contemplating cards:

"And indeed, now I think again, I have a
strong impression that I have another good card
here, not yet enumerated. That friend and
fellow-Sheep, who spoke of himself as pasturing
in the country prisons; who was he?"

"French. You don't know him," said the
spy, quickly.

"French, eh?" repeated Carton, musing, and
not appearing to notice him at all, though he
echoed his word. "Well; he may be."

"Is, I assure you," said the spy; "though it's
not important."

"Though it's not important," repeated Carton
in the same mechanical way—"though it's not
important—No, it's not important. No. Yet
I know the face."

"I think not. I am sure not. It can't be,"
said the spy.

"It—can't—be," muttered Sydney Carton,
retrospectively, and filling his glass (which
fortunately was a small one) again. "Can't—
be. Spoke good French. Yet like a foreigner,
I thought?"