her enemy strangled.

“Well!” said Defarge, with a half complaining and half

apologetic shrug. “We shall not see the triumph.”

“We shall have helped it,” returned madame, with her extended

hand in strong action. “Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I

believe with all my soul, that we shall see the triumph. But even if

not, even if I knew certainly not, show me the neck of an aristocrat

and tyrant, and still I would” Then madame, with her teeth set,

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

tied a very terrible knot indeed.

“Hold!” cried Defarge, reddening a little as if he felt charged

with cowardice; “I too, my dear, will stop at nothing.”

“Yes! But it is your weakness that you sometimes need to see

your victim and your opportunity, to sustain you. Sustain yourself

without that. When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil;

but wait for the time with the tiger and the devil chainednot

shownyet always ready.”

Madame enforced the conclusion of this piece of advice by

striking her little counter with her chain of money as if she

knocked its brains out, and then gathering the heavy handkerchief

under her arm in a serene manner, and observing that it was time

to go to bed.

Next noontide saw the admirable woman in her usual place in

the wine-shop knitting away assiduously. A rose lay beside her,

and if she now and the