Pagina 225 de 896

"I have been there, as you remember," said Darnay, with a smile,

though reddening a little angrily, "in another character, and not

in a character that gives facilities for seeing much of it. They

told me a curious thing when I was there."

"What was that?" Lucie asked.

"In making some alterations, the workmen came upon an old

dungeon, which had been, for many years, built up and forgotten.

Every stone of its inner wall was covered by inscriptions which

had been carved by prisoners--dates, names, complaints, and

prayers. Upon a corner stone in an angle of the wall, one

prisoner, who seemed to have gone to execution, had cut as his

last work, three letters. They were done with some very poor

instrument, and hurriedly, with an unsteady hand. At first, they

were read as D. I. C.; but, on being more carefully examined, the

last letter was found to be G. There was no record or legend of

any prisoner with those initials, and many fruitless guesses were

made what the name could have been. At length, it was suggested

that the letters were not initials, but the complete word, DIG.