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"French, eh?" repeated Carton, musing, and not appearing to

notice him at all, though he echoed his word. "Well; he may be."

"Is, I assure you," said the spy; "though it's not important."

"Though it's not important," repeated Carton, in the same

mechanical way--"though it's not important--No, it's not

important. No. Yet I know the face."

"I think not. I am sure not. It can't be," said the spy.

"It-can't-be," muttered Sydney Carton, retrospectively, and

idling his glass (which fortunately was a small one) again.

"Can't-be. Spoke good French. Yet like a foreigner, I thought?"

"Provincial," said the spy.

"No. Foreign!" cried Carton, striking his open hand on the table,

as a light broke clearly on his mind. "Cly! Disguised, but the

same man. We had that man before us at the Old Bailey."