Chapter 98

Chapter

14

In that same juncture of time when the Fifty-Two awaited their fate Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council with The Vengeance and Jacques Three of the Revolutionary Jury. Not in the wine-shop did Madame Defarge confer with these ministers, but in the shed of the wood-sawyer, erst a mender of roads. The sawyer himself did not participate in the conference, but abided at a little distance, like an outer satellite who was not to speak until required, or to offer an opinion until invited.

“But our Defarge,” said Jacques Three, “is undoubtedly a good Republican? Eh?”

“There is no better,” the voluble Vengeance protested in her shrill notes, “in France.”

“Peace, little Vengeance,” said Madame Defarge, laying her hand with a slight frown on her lieutenant’s lips,……