Could he resist his old servant’s appeal?  He knew the peril of it, but his honour was at stake; he must go.  That evening he wrote two letters explaining his purpose, one to Lucie, one to the doctor.  On the next night he went out, pretending he would be back by-and-by.  The two letters he left with the trusty porter to be delivered before midnight; and, with a heavy heart, leaving all that was dear on earth behind him, he journeyed on—­drawn, like the mariner in the old story, to the Loadstone Rock.

IV.—­The Track of a Storm

In the buildings of Tellson’s Bank in Paris, Mr. Lorry sat by a wood fire (it was early September, but the blighted year was prematurely cold), and on his honest face there was a deeper shade than the pendant lamp could throw—­a shade of horror.  By him sat Dr. Manette; Lucie and her child were in an inner room.  They had hastened after Darnay to Paris.  Dr. Manette knew that as a Bastille prisoner he bore a charmed life in revolutionary France, and that if Darnay was in danger he could help him.  Darnay was indeed in danger.  He had been arrested as an aristocrat and an enemy of the Republic.

From the streets there came the usual night hum of the city, with now and then an indescribable ring in it, weird and unearthly, as if some unwonted sounds of a terrible nature were going up to Heaven.

A loud noise of feet and voices came pouring into the courtyard.  Mr. Lorry put his hand on the doctor’s arm, and they looked out.

A throng of men and women crowded round a grindstone.  Turning madly at its double handle were two men, whose faces were more horrible and cruel than the visages of the wildest savages.  The eye could not detect one creature in the surrounding group free from the smear of blood.  Shouldering one another to get next at the sharpening-stone were men with the stain all over their limbs and bodies; hatchets, knives, bayonets, swords, all were red with it.

“They are murdering the prisoners,” whispered Mr. Lorry.

Dr. Manette hastened out of the room, and down into the courtyard.  There was a pause, a murmur, and the sound of his voice.  Then Mr. Lorry saw him, surrounded by all, hurried out with cries of “Live the Bastille prisoner!  Help for the Bastille prisoner’s kindred in La Force!”

It was long ere he returned.  He had presented himself at the prison before the self-appointed tribunal that was consigning the prisoners to massacre, and had announced himself as a victim of the Bastille.  One member of the tribunal had identified him; the member was Defarge.  He had pleaded hard for his son-in-law’s life, and had been informed that the prisoner must remain in custody; but should, for the doctor’s sake, be held in safe custody.

For fifteen months Charles Darnay remained in prison.  During all that time Lucie was never sure but that her husband’s head would be struck off next day.  When at length arraigned as an emigrant whose life was forfeit to the Republic, he pleaded that he had come back to save a citizen’s life.  That night he sat by the fire with his family, a free man.  Lucie at last was at ease.