“Her husband’s destiny,” said Madame Defarge, with her usual

composure, “will take him where he is to go, and will lead him to

the end that is to end him. That is all I know.”

“But it is very strangenow, at least, is it not very strange”

said Defarge, rather pleading with his wife to induce her to admit

it, “that, after all our sympathy for Monsieur her father, and

herself, her husband’s name should be proscribed under your

hand at this moment, by the side of that infernal dog’s who has

just left us?”

“Stranger things than that will happen when it does come,”

answered madame. “I have them both here, of a certainty; and

they are both here for their merits; that is enough.”

She rolled up her knitting when she had said those words, and

presently took the rose out of the handkerchief that was wound

about her head. Either Saint Antoine had an instinctive sense that

the objectionable decoration was gone, or Saint Antoine was on

the watch for its disappearance; howbeit, the Saint took courage to

lounge in, very shortly afterwards, and the wine-shop recovered its

habitual aspect.

In the evening, at which season of all others Saint Antoine

turned himself inside out, and sat on doorsteps and window-

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

ledges, and came to the corners of vile streets and courts, for a

breath of air, Madame Defa