and in a mysterious and guilty manner mr the s bench to pieces while miss held the candle as if she were assisting at a murder � for which indeed in her she was no figure the burning of the body previously reduced to pieces convenient for the purpose was commenced without delay in the kitchen fire and the tools shoes and leather were buried in the garden so wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds that mr and miss while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces almost felt and almost looked like in a horrible crime a tale op two cities chapter xx a plea when the newly married pair came home the first person who appeared to offer his congratulations was they had not been at home many hours when he presented himself he was not improved in habits or in looks or in manner but there was a certain rugged air of fidelity about him which was new to the observation of charles he watched his opportunity of taking aside into a window and of speaking to him when no one overheard mr said i wish we might be we are already friends i hope you are good enough to say so as a fashion of speech but i don t mean any fashion of speech indeed when i say i wish we might be friends i scarcely mean quite that either charles � as was natural � asked him in all good humor and good fellowship what he did mean upon my life said smiling find that easier to comprehend in my own mind than to convey to yours however let me try you remember a certain famous occasion when i was more drunk than � than usual a tale of two cities i remember a certain occasion when a forced me to confess that a had been drinking i remember it too the curse of those occasions is heavy upon me for i always remember them i hope it may be taken into account one day when all days are at an end for me � don t be alarmed i am not going to preach i am not at all alarmed earnestness in you is anything but alarming to me ah i said with a careless wave of his hand as if he waved that away on the drunken occasion in question one of a large number as you know i was about liking you and not liking you i wish you would forget it i forgot it long ago fashion of speech again but mr oblivion is not so easy to me as you represent it to be to you i have by no means forgotten it and a light answer does not help me to forget it if it was a light answer returned i beg your forgiveness for it i had no other object than to turn a slight thing which to my surprise seems to trouble you too much aside i declare to you on the faith of a gentleman that i have long dismissed it from my mind heaven what was there to dismiss have i had nothing more important to remember in the great service you rendered me that day as to the great service said i am bound to to you when you speak of it in that way that it was mere professional clap trap i don t know that i cared what became of you when i rendered it � mind i say when i rendered it i am speaking of the past a tale of two cities you make light of the obligation returned but i will not quarrel with your light answer genuine truth mr trust me i have gone aside from my purpose i was speaking about our being friends now you know me you know i am incapable of all the higher and better flights of men if you doubt it ask and he ll tell you so i prefer to form my own opinion without the aid of his well at any rate you know me as a dog who has never done any good and never will i don t know that you never will but i do and you must take my word for it well if you could endure to have such a worthless fellow and a fellow of such indifferent reputation coming and going at odd times i should ask that i might be permitted to come and go as a privileged person here that i might be regarded as an useless and i would add if it were not for the resemblance i detected between you and me an piece of furniture for its old service and taken no notice of i doubt if i should abuse the permission it is a hundred to one if i should avail myself of it four times in a year it would satisfy me i dare say to know that i had it � wiu you try that is another way of saying that i am placed on the footing i have indicated i thank you i may use that freedom with your name i think so by this time they shook hands upon it and turned away within a minute afterwards he was to all outward appearance as as ever when he was gone and in the course of an evening a tale of two cities passed with miss the doctor and mr charles made some mention of this conversation in general terms and spoke of as a problem of carelessness and he spoke of him in short not bitterly or meaning to bear hard upon him but as anybody might who saw him as he showed himself he had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of his fair young wife but when he afterwards joined her in their own rooms he found her 