fainted when the sentence was pronounced. Sydney Carton, who had
witnessed the trial, lifted her and bore her to a carriage. When they
reached home he carried her up the stairs and laid her on a couch.

Before he went, he bent down and touched her cheek with his lips, and
they heard him whisper: "For a life you love!"

They did not know until next day what he meant.

Carton had, in fact, formed a desperate plan to rescue Lucie's husband,
whom he so much resembled in face and figure, even though it meant his
own death. He went to Mr. Lorry and made him promise to have ready next
morning passports and a coach and swift horses to leave Paris for
England with Doctor Manette, Lucie and himself, telling him that if they
delayed longer, Lucie's life and her father's also would be lost.

Next, Carton bought a quantity of a drug whose fumes would render a man
insensible, and with this in his pocket early next morning he went to
the spy, Barsad, and bade him redeem his promise and take him to the
cell where Darnay waited for the signal of death.

Darnay was seated, writing a last letter to Lucie, when Carton entered.
Pretending that he wished him to write something that he dictated,
Carton stood over him and held the phial of the drug to his face. In a
moment the other was unconscious. Then Carton changed clothes with him
and called in the spy, directing him to take the unconscious man, who
now seemed to be Sydney Carton instead of Charles Darnay, to Mr. Lorry's
house. He himself was to take the prisoner's place and suffer the
penalty.

The plan worked well. Darnay, who would not have allowed this sacrifice
if he had known, was carried safely and without discovery, past the
guards. Mr. Lorry, guessing what had happened when he saw the
unconscious figure, took coach at once with him, Doctor Manette and
Lucie, and started for England that very hour. Miss Pross was left to
follow them in another carriage.

While Miss Pross sat waiting in the empty house, who should come in but
the terrible Madame Defarge! The latter had made up her mind, as Carton
had suspected, to denounce Lucie also. It was against the law to mourn
for any one who had been condemned as an enemy to France, and the woman
was sure, of course, that Lucie would be mourning for her husband, who
was to die within the hour. So she stopped on her way to the execution
to see Lucie and thus have evidence against her.

When Madame Defarge entered, Miss Pross read the