 - as on the trial - evoke
this condition from the depths of his soul, it was also in its nature to arise
of itself, and to draw a gloom over him, as incomprehensible to those
unacquainted with his story as if they had seen the shadow of the actual
Bastille thrown upon him by a summer sun, when the substance was three hundred
miles away.
    Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from his
mind. She was the golden thread that united him to a Past beyond his misery, and
to a Present beyond his misery: and the sound of her voice, the light of her
face, the touch of her hand, had a strong beneficial influence with him almost
always. Not absolutely always, for she could recall some occasions on which her
power had failed; but they were few and slight, and she believed them over.
    Mr. Darnay had kissed her hand fervently and gratefully, and had turned to
Mr. Stryver, whom he warmly thanked. Mr. Stryver, a man of little more than
thirty, but looking twenty years older than he was, stout, loud, red, bluff, and
free from any drawback of delicacy, had a pushing way of shouldering himself
(morally and physically) into companies and conversations, that argued well for
his shouldering his way up in life.
    He still had his wig and gown on, and he said, squaring himself at his late
client to that degree that he squeezed the innocent Mr. Lorry clean out of the
group: »I am glad to have brought you off with honour, Mr. Darnay. It was an
infamous prosecution, grossly infamous; but not the less likely to succeed on
that account.«
    »You have laid me under an obligation to you for life - in two senses,« said
his late client, taking his hand.
    »I have done my best for you, Mr. Darnay; and my best is as good as another
man's, I believe.«
    It clearly being incumbent on some one to say, »Much better,« Mr. Lorry said
it; perhaps not quite disinterestedly, but with the interested object of
squeezing himself back again.
    »You think so?« said Mr. Stryver. »Well! you have been present all day, and
you ought to know. You are a man of business, too.«
    »And as such,« quoth Mr. Lorry, whom the counsel learned in the law had now
shouldered back into the group, just as he had previously shouldered him out of
it - »as
