some sense of better things, else forgotten and unattainable, into
his mind. Of late, the neglected bed in the Temple Court had
known him more sc**ly than ever; and often when he had
thrown himself upon it no longer than a few 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
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
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A Tale of Two Cities
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 upstairs, 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
common-places, 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 had 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!”
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A Tale of Two Cities
“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 now 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 inter view 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 bri"};
