the
Doctor's room. The bench was turned towards the light, as it had been
when he had seen the shoemaker at his work before, and his head was bent
down, and he was very busy.

"Doctor Manette. My dear friend, Doctor Manette!"

The Doctor looked at him for a moment--half inquiringly, half as if he
were angry at being spoken to--and bent over his work again.

He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat; his shirt was open at the
throat, as it used to be when he did that work; and even the old
haggard, faded surface of face had come back to him. He worked
hard--impatiently--as if in some sense of having been interrupted.

Mr. Lorry glanced at the work in his hand, and observed that it was a
shoe of the old size and shape. He took up another that was lying by
him, and asked what it was.

"A young lady's walking shoe," he muttered, without looking up. "It
ought to have been finished long ago. Let it be."

"But, Doctor Manette. Look at me!"

He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, without pausing in
his work.

"You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is not your proper
occupation. Think, dear friend!"

Nothing would induce him to speak more. He looked up, for an instant at
a time, when he was requested to do so; but, no persuasion would extract
a word from him. He worked, and worked, and worked, in silence, and
words fell on him as they would have fallen on an echoless wall, or on
the air. The only ray of hope that Mr. Lorry could discover, was, that
he sometimes furtively looked up without being asked. In that, there
seemed a faint expression of curiosity or perplexity--as though he were
trying to reconcile some doubts in his mind.

Two things at once impressed themselves on Mr. Lorry, as important above
all others; the first, that this must be kept secret from Lucie;
the second, that it must be kept secret from all who knew him. In
conjunction with Miss Pross, he took immediate steps towards the latter
precaution, by giving out that the Doctor was not well, and required a
few days of complete rest. In aid of the kind deception to be practised
on his daughter, Miss Pross was to write, describing his having been
called away professionally, and referring to an imaginary letter of
two or three hurried lines in his own hand, represented to have been
addressed to her by the same post.

These measures, advisable to be taken in any case, Mr. Lorry took in
the hope of his coming to himself. If that s