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"That night, I tell him, when the paper is read through, and the

lamp is burnt out, and the day is gleaming in above those

shutters and between those iron bars, that I have now a secret to

communicate. Ask him, is that so."

"It is so," assented Defarge again.

"I communicate to him that secret. I smite this bosom with these

two hands as I smite it now, and I tell him, 'Defarge, I was

brought up among the fishermen of the sea-shore, and that peasant

family so injured by the two Evremonde brothers, as that Bastille

paper describes, is my family. Defarge, that sister of the

mortally wounded boy upon the ground was my sister, that husband

was my sister's husband, that unborn child was their child, that

brother was my brother, that father was my father, those dead are

my dead, and that summons to answer for those things descends to

me!' Ask him, is that so."

"It is so," assented Defarge once more.

"Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop," returned madame; "but

don't tell me."