hatred and evil purpose
in her face. The grim old nurse knew if it were known that Lucie had
gone, the coach would be pursued and brought back. So she planted
herself in front of the door of Lucie's room, and would not let Madame
Defarge open it.

The savage Frenchwoman tried to tear her away, but Miss Pross seized her
around the waist, and held her back. The other drew a loaded pistol from
her breast to shoot her, but in the struggle it went off and killed
Madame Defarge herself.

Then Miss Pross, all of a tremble, locked the door, threw the key into
the river, took a carriage and followed after the coach.

Not long after the unconscious Darnay, with Lucie and Doctor Manette,
passed the gates of Paris, the jailer came to the cell where Sydney
Carton sat and called him. It was the summons to die. And with his
thoughts on Lucie, whom he had always hopelessly loved, and on her
husband, whom he had thus saved to her, he went almost gladly.

A poor little seamstress rode in the death cart beside him. She was so
small and weak that she feared to die, and Carton held her cold hand all
the way and comforted her to the end. Cruel women of the people sat
about the guillotine knitting and counting with their stitches, as each
poor victim died. And when Carton's turn came, thinking he was Darnay,
the hated Marquis de St. Evremonde, they cursed him and laughed.

Men said of him about the city that night that it was the peacefullest
man's face ever beheld there. If they could have read his thought, if he
could have spoken it in words it would have been these:

"I see the lives, for which I lay down mine, peaceful and happy in that
England I shall see no more. I see Lucie and Darnay with a child that
bears my name, and I see that I shall hold a place in their hearts for
ever. I see her weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see the
blot I threw upon my name faded away, and I know that till they die
neither shall be more honored in the soul of the other than I am honored
in the souls of both. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I
have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have
ever known!"

BLEAK HOUSE

Published 1852-1853

_Scene_: London and the Country

_Time_: 1832 to 1852

CHARACTERS

Mr. Jarndyce Master of Bleak House

Mr. Boythorn His friend

Sir Leicester Dedlock