`Now, I trust,' said Sydney to him, `that the name and influence of Doctor Manette may stand him in as good stead to-morrow you said he would be before the Tribunal again to-morrow, Mr. Barsad?---'

`Yes; I believe so.'

`--In as good stead to-morrow as to-day. But it may not be so. I own to you, I am shaken, Mr. Lorry, by Doctor Manette's not having had the power to prevent this arrest.

`He may not have known of it beforehand,' said Mr. Lorry. `But that very circumstance would be alarming, when we remember how identified he is with his son-in-law.'

`That's true,' Mr. Lorry acknowledged, with his troubled hand at his chin, and his troubled eyes on Carton.

`In short,' said Sydney, `this is a desperate time, when desperate games are played for desperate stakes. Let the Doctor play the winning game; I will play the losing one. No man's life here is worth purchase. Any one carried home by the people to-day, may be condemned to-morrow. Now, the stake I have resolved to play for, in case of the worst, is a friend in the Conciergerie. And the friend I purpose to myself to win, is Mr. Barsad.'

`You need have good cards, sir,' said the spy.

`I'll run them over. I'll see what I hold.--Mr. Lorry, you know what a brute I am; I wish you'd give me a little brandy.'

It was put before him, and he drank off a glassful--rank off another glassful--pushed the bottle thoughtfully away.

`Mr. Barsad,' he went one `in the tone of one who really was looking over a hand at cards: `Sheep of the prisons, emissary of Republican committees, now turnkey, now prisoner, always spy and secret informer, so much the more valuable here for being English that an Englishman is less open to suspicion of subornation in those characters than a Frenchman, represents himself to his employers under a false name. That's a very good card. Mr. Barsad, now in the employ of the republican French government, was former!y in the employ of the aristocratic English government, the enemy of France and freedom. That's an excellent card. Inference clear as day in this region of suspicion, that Mr. Barsad, still in the pay of the aristocratic English government, is the spy of Pitt, the treacherous foe of the Republic crouching in its bosom, the English traitor and agent of all mischief so much spoken of and so difficult to find. That's a card not to be beaten. Have you followed my hand, Mr. Barsad?'

`Not to `understand your play,' returned the spy, somewhat uneasily.

`I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the nearest Section Committee. Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and see what you have. Don't hurry.'

He drew the bottle near, poured out another glassful of brandy, and drank it off. He saw that the spy was fearful of his drinking himself into a fit state for the immediate denunciation of him. Seeing it, he poured out and drank another glassful.

Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad. Take time.' It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr. Barsad saw losing cards in it that Sydney Carton knew nothing of. Thrown out of his honourable employment in England, through too much unsuccessful hard swearing there--not because he was not wanted there: our English reasons for vaunting our superiority to secrecy and spies are of very modern date--he knew that he had crossed the Channel, and accepted service in France: first, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among his own countrymen there: gradually, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among the natives. He knew that under the overthrown government he had been a spy upon Saint Antoine and Defarge's wine- shop; had received from the watchful police such heads of information concerning Doctor Manette's imprisonment,