go back to that time, deepened as he dwelt upon
it; but, there was nothing to shock her in the
manner of his reference. He only seemed to
contrast his present cheerfulness and felicity
with the dire endurance that was over.

"I have looked at her, speculating thousands
of times upon the unborn child from whom I
had been rent. Whether it was alive. Whether
it had been born alive, or the poor mother's shock
had killed it. Whether it was a son who would
some day avenge his father. (There was a
time in my imprisonment, when my desire for
vengeance was unbearable.) Whether it was a
son who would never know his father's story;
who might even live to weigh the possibility of
his father's having disappeared of his own will
and act. Whether it was a daughter, who
would grow to be a woman."

She drew closer to him, and kissed his cheek
and his hand.

"I have pictured my daughter, to myself, as
perfectly forgetful of me—rather, altogether
ignorant of me, and unconscious of me. I have
cast up the years of her age, year after year. I
have seen her married to a man who knew
nothing of my fate. I have altogether perished
from the remembrance of the living, and in
the next generation rny place was a blank."

"My father! Even to hear that you had such
thoughts of a daughter who never existed, strikes
to my heart as if I had been that child."

"You, Lucie? It is out of the consolation
and restoration you. have brought to me, that
these remembrances arise, and pass between us
and the moon on this last night—What did
I say, just now?"

"She knew nothing of you. She cared
nothing for you."

"So! But on other moonlight nights, when
the sadness and the silence have touched me in
a different way—have affected me with something
as like a sorrowful sense of peace, as any emotion
that had pain for its foundations could—
I have imagined her as coming to me in rny cell,
and leading me out into the freedom beyond
the fortress. I have seen her image in the
moonlight, often, as I now see you; except that
I never held her in my arms; it stood between
the little grated window and the door. But,
you understand that that was not the child I am
speaking of?"

"The figure was not; the—the—image; the
fancy?"

"No. That was another thing. It stood
before my disturbed sense of sight, but it never
moved. The phantom that my mind pursued,
was another and more real child. Of her outward
appearance I know no more than that she
was like her mother. The other had that likeness
too—as you have—but was not the same.
Can you follow me, Lucie? Hardly, I think?
I doubt you must have been a solitary prisoner
to understand these perplexed distinctions."

His collected and calm manner could not prevent
her blood from running cold, as he thus
tried to anatomise his old condition.

"In that more peaceful state, I have imagined
her, in the moonlight, coming to me and taking
me out to show me that the home of her married
life was full of her loving remembrance of her
lost father. My picture was in her room, and I
was in her prayers. Her life was active, cheerful,
useful; but my poor history pervaded it all."

"I was that child, my father. I was not
half so good, but in my love that was I."

"And she showed me her children," said the
Doctor of Beauvais, "and they had heard of
me, and had been taught to pity me. When
they passed a prison of the State, they kept
far from its frowning walls, and looked up at its
bars, and spoke in whispers. She could never
deliver me; I imagined that she always brought
me back after showing me such things. But
then, blessed with the relief of tears, I fell upon
my knees, and blessed her."

"I am that child, I hope, my father. O my
dear, my dear, will you bless me as fervently
tomorrow?"

"Lucie, I recal these old troubles in the
reason that I have to-night for loving you better
than words can tell, and thanking God for my
great happiness. My thoughts, when they were
wildest, never rose near the happiness that I
have known with you, and that we have before
us."

He embraced her, solemnly commended her
to Heaven, and humbly thanked Heaven for
having bestowed her on him. By-and-by, they
went into the house.

There was no one bidden to the marriage but
Mr. Lorry; there was even to be no bridesmaid
but the gaunt Miss Pross. The marriage was to
make no change in their place of residence;
they had been able to extend it, by taking to
themselves the upper rooms formerly belonging
to the apocryphal invisible lodger, and they
desired nothing more.

Doctor Manette was very cheerful at the little
supper. They were only three at table, and
Miss Pross made the third. He regretted that
Charles was not there; was more than half
disposed to object to the loving little plot that
kept him away; and drank to him affectionately.

So, the time came for him to bid Lucie good
night, and they separated. But, in the stillness
of the third hour of the morning, Lucie came
down stairs again, and stole into his room: not
free from unshaped fears, beforehand.

All things, however, were in their places; all
was quiet; and he lay asleep, his white hair
picturesque on the untroubled pillow, and his
hands lying quiet on the coverlet. She put her
needless candle in the shadow at a distance, crept
up to his bed, and put her lips to his; then,
leaned over him and looked at him.

Into his handsome face, the bitter waters of
captivity had worn; but, he covered up their
tracks with a determination so strong, that he
held the mastery of them, even in his sleep. A
more remarkable face in its quiet, resolute, and
guarded struggle with an unseen assailant, was
not to be belield in all the wide dominions of
sleep, that night.

She timidly laid her hand on his dear breast,