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"I should have hoped, gentlemen both," said the spy, always

striving to hook Mr. Lorry into the discussion, "that your

respect for my sister--"

"I could not better testify my respect for your sister than by

finally relieving her of her brother," said Sydney Carton.

"You think not, sir?"

"I have thoroughly made up my mind about it."

The smooth manner of the spy, curiously in dissonance with his

ostentatiously rough dress, and probably with his usual

demeanour, received such a check from the inscrutability of

Carton,--who was a mystery to wiser and honester men than

he,--that it faltered here and failed him. While he was at a

loss, Carton said, resuming his former air of contemplating

cards:

"And indeed, now I think again, I have a strong impression that I

have another good card here, not yet enumerated. That friend and

fellow-Sheep, who spoke of himself as pasturing in the country

prisons; who was he?"

"French. You don't know him," said the spy, quickly.