e suppressed manner had enough of menace in itnot

visible and presented, but indistinct and withheldto alarm Lucie

into saying, as she laid her appealing hand on Madame Defarge’s

dress:

“You will be good to my poor husband. You will do him no

harm. You will help me to see him if you can?”

“Your husband is not my business here,” returned Madame

Defarge, looking down at her with perfect composure. “It is the

daughter of your father who is my business here.”

“For my sake, then, be merciful to my husband. For my child’s

sake! She will put her hands together and pray you to be merciful.

We are more afraid of you than of these others.”

Madame Defarge received it as a compliment, and looked at her

husband. Defarge, who had been uneasily biting his thumb-nail

and looking at her, collected his face into a sterner expression.

“What is that your husband says in that little letter?” asked

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

Madame Defarge, with a lowering smile. “Influence; he says

something touching influence?”

“That my father,” said Lucie, hurriedly taking the paper from

her breast, but with her alarmed eyes on her questioner and not

on it, “has much influence around him.”

“Surely it will release him!” said Madame Defarge. “Let it do

so.”

“As a wife and mother,” cried Lucie most earnestly, “I implore