up. “It ought to have been finished long ago. Let it be.”
“But, Doctor Manette. Look at me!”
He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, without
pausing in his work.
“You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is not your
proper occupation. Think, dear friend!”
Nothing would induce him to speak more. He looked up, for an
instant at a time, when he was requested to do so; but, no
persuasion would extract a word from him. He worked, and
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A Tale of Two Cities
worked, and worked, in silence, and words fell on him as they
would have fallen on an echoless wall, or on the air. The only ray
of hope that Mr. Lorry could discover, was, that he sometimes
furtively looked up without being asked. In that, there seemed a
faint of curiosity or perplexity—as though he were
trying to reconcile some doubts in his mind.
Two things at once impressed themselves on Mr. Lorry, as
important above all others; the first, that this must be kept secret
from Lucie; the second that it must be kept secret from all who
knew him. In conjunction with Miss Pross, he took immediate
steps towards the latter precaution, by giving out that the Doctor
was not well, and required a few days of complete rest. In aid of
the kind deception to be practised on his daughter, Miss Pross was
to write, describing his having been called away professionally,
and referring to an imaginary letter of two or three hurried lines in
his own hand, represented to have been addressed to her by the
same post.
These measures, advisable to be taken in any case, Mr. Lorry
took in the hope of his coming to himself. If that should happen
soon, he kept another course in reserve; which was, to have a
certain opinion that he thought the best, on the Doctor’s case.
In the hope of his recovery, and of resort to this third course
being thereby rendered practicable, Mr. Lorry resolved to watch
him attentively, with as little appearance as possible of doing so.
He therefore made arrangements to absent himself from Tellson’s
for the first time in his life, and took his post by the window in the
same room.
He was not long in discovering that it was worse than useless to
speak to him, since, on being pressed, he became worried. He
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A Tale of Two Cities
abandoned that attempt on the first day, and resolved merely to
keep himself always before him, as a silent protest against the
delusion into which he had fallen, or was falling. He remained,
therefore, in his seat near the window, reading and writing, and
expressing in as many pleasant and natural ways as he could think
of, that it was a free place.
Doctor Manette took what was given him to eat and drink, and
worked on, that first day, until it was too dark to see—worked on,
half an hour after Mr. Lorry could not have seen, for his life, to
read or write. When he put his tools aside as useless, until
morning, Mr. Lorry rose and said to him:
“Will you go out?”
He looked down at the floor on either side of him in the old
manner, looked up in the old manner, and repeated in the old low
voice:
“Out?”
“Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?”
He made no effort to say why not, and said not a word more.
But, Mr. Lorry thought he saw, as he leaned forward on his bench
in the dusk, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his
hands, that he was in some misty way asking himself, “Why not?”
The sagacity of the man of business perceived an advantage here, "};
