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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library - A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens


166

“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 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 with-out being asked. In
that, there seemed a faint expression 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
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:
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