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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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114 Charles Darnay.” “It is a tone of fervent admiration, true homage, and deep love, Doctor Manette!” he said deferentially. There was another blank silence before her father rejoined: “I believe it. I do you justice; I believe it.” His constraint was so manifest, and it was so manifest, too, that it originated in an unwillingness to approach the subject, that Charles Darnay hesitated. “Shall I go on, sir?” Another blank. “Yes, go on.” “You anticipate what I would say, though you cannot know how earnestly I say it, how earnestly I feel it, without knowing my secret heart, and the hopes and fears and anxieties with which it has long been laden. Dear Doctor Manette, I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her. You have loved yourself; let your old love speak for me!” The Doctor sat with his face turned away, and his eyes bent on the ground. At the last words, he stretched out his hand again, hurriedly, and cried: “Not that, sir! Let that be! I adjure you, do not recall that!” His cry was so like a cry of actual pain, that it rang in Charles Darnay’s ears long after he had ceased. He motioned with the hand he had extended, and it seemed to be an appeal to Darnay to pause. The latter so received it, and remained silent. “I ask your pardon,” said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, after some moments. “I do not doubt your loving Lucie; you may be satisfied of it.” He turned towards him in his chair, but did not look at him, or raise his eyes. His chin dropped upon his hand, and his white hair overshadowed his face: “Have you spoken to Lucie?” “No.” “Nor written?” “Never.” “It would be ungenerous to affect not to know that your self-denial is to be referred to your consideration for her father. Her father thanks you.” He offered his hand; but his eyes did not go with it. “I know,” said Darnay, respectfully, “how can I fail to know, Doctor Manette, I who have seen you together from day to day, that between you and Miss Manette there is an affection so unusual, so touching, so belonging to the circumstances in which it has been nurtured, that it can have few parallels, even in the tenderness between a father and child. I know, Doctor Manette- how can I fail to know-that, mingled with the affection and duty of a daughter who has become a woman, there is, in her heart, towards you, all the love and reliance of infancy itself. I know that, as in her childhood she had no parent, so she is now devoted to |
