ld 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 Basti