`Is Lucie the topic?'

Yes?' said the Doctor, with evident constraint. `Bring your chair here, and speak on.'

He complied as to the chair, but appeared to find the speaking on less easy.

`I have had the happiness, Doctor Manette, of being so intimate here,' so he at length began, `for some year and a half, that I hope the topic on which I am about to touch may not---'

He was stayed by the Doctor's putting out his hand to stop him. When he had kept it so a little while, he said, drawing it back:

`Is Lucie the topic?'

`She is.'

`It is hard for me to speak of her at any time. It is very hard for me to hear her spoken of in that tone of yours, Charles Darnay.'

`It is a tone of fervent admiration, true homage, and deep love, Doctor Manette!' he said deferentially.

There was another blank silence before her father rejoined: `I believe it. I do you justice; I believe it.'

His constraint was so manifest, and it was so manifest, too, that it originated in an unwillingness to approach the subject, that Charles Darnay hesitated.

`Shall I go on, sir?'

Another blank.

`Yes, go on.'

`You anticipate what I would say, though you cannot know how earnestly I say it, how earnestly I feel it, without knowing my secret heart, and the hopes and fears and anxieties with which it has long been laden. Dear Doctor Manette, I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her. You have loved yourself; let your old love speak for me!'

The Doctor sat with his face turned away, and his eyes bent on the ground. At the last words, he stretched out his hand again, hurriedly, and cried: