worldly affairs. That done, with many added sentences of grateful

friendship and warm attachment, all was done. He never thought

of Carton. His mind was so full of the others, that he never once

thought of him.

He had time to finish these letters before the lights were put

out. When he lay down on his straw bed, he thought he had done

with this world.

But, it beckoned him back in his sleep, and showed itself in

shining forms. Free and happy, back in the old house in Soho

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

(though it had nothing in it like the real house), unaccountably

released and light of heart, he was with Lucie again, and she told

him it was all a dream, and he had never gone away. A pause of

forgetfulness, and then he had even suffered, and had come back

to her, dead and at peace, and yet there was no difference in him.

Another pause of oblivion, and he awoke in the sombre morning,

unconscious where he was or what had happened, until it flashed

upon his mind, “this is the day of my death!”

Thus, had he come through the hours, to the day when the fiftytwo

heads were to fall. And now, while he was composed, and

hoped that he could meet the end with quiet heroism, a new action

began in his waking thoughts, which was very difficult to master.

He had never seen the instrument that was to terminate his life.

How high