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[42] i.e. during the whole time of their striving the will of Jove was being gradually accomplished.

The supposed Evrémonde descends, and the seamstress is lifted out next after him. He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her back to the crashing engine that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into his face and thanks him.

The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes up. Crash!--And the knitting-women, never faltering or pausing in their Work, count Two.

As The Vengeance descends from her elevation to do it, the tumbrils begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are robed and ready. Crash!--A head is held up, and the knitting-women who scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could think and speak, count One.

“I don’t know where Dinn may be,” said the Mock Turtle, “but if you’ve seen them so often, of course you know what they’re like.”

“And till Colonel Forster came himself, not one of you entertained a doubt, I suppose, of their being really married?”

“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.”

“Yes,” said Alice, “I’ve often seen them at dinn—” she checked herself hastily.

[41] Vultures: Pope is more accurate than the poet he translates, for Homer writes “a prey to dogs and to all kinds of birds. But all kinds of birds are not carnivorous.

“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.”

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.

“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.”

“Bad Fortune!” cries The Vengeance, stamping her foot in the chair, “and here are the tumbrils! And Evrémonde will be despatched in a wink, and she not here! See her knitting in my hand, and her empty chair ready for her. I cry with vexation and disappointment!”

“Yes; but when questioned by him, Denny denied knowing anything of their plan, and would not give his real opinion about it. He did not repeat his persuasion of their not marrying, and from that I am inclined to hope he might have been misunderstood before.”

Ay! Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still she will scarcely hear thee. Louder yet, Vengeance, with a little oath or so added, and yet it will hardly bring her. Send other women up and down to seek her, lingering somewhere; and yet, although the messengers have done dread deeds, it is questionable whether of their own wills they will go far enough to find her!

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.

“Oh, as to the whiting,” said the Mock Turtle, “they—you’ve seen them, of course?”

“And was Denny convinced that Wickham would not marry? Did he know of their intending to go off? Had Colonel Forster seen Denny himself?”

“Colonel Forster did own that he had often suspected some partiality, especially on Lydia’s side, but nothing to give him any alarm. I am so grieved for him. His behaviour was attentive and kind to the utmost. He was coming to us, in order to assure us of his concern, before he had any idea of their not being gone to Scotland: when that apprehension first got abroad, it hastened his journey.”

“Thank you, it’s a very interesting dance to watch,” said Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last: “and I do so like that curious song about the whiting!”