.
That's a card not to be beaten. Have you followed my hand, Mr. Barsad?«
    »Not to understand your play,« returned the spy, somewhat uneasily.
    »I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the nearest Section Committee.
Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and see what you have. Don't hurry.«
    He drew the bottle near, poured out another glassful of brandy, and drank it
off. He saw that the spy was fearful of his drinking himself into a fit state
for the immediate denunciation of him. Seeing it, he poured out and drank
another glassful.
    »Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad. Take time.«
    It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr. Barsad saw losing cards in it
that Sydney Carton knew nothing of. Thrown out of his honourable employment in
England, through too much unsuccessful hard swearing there - not because he was
not wanted there: our English reasons for vaunting our superiority to secrecy
and spies are of very modern date - he knew that he had crossed the Channel, and
accepted service in France: first, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among his
own countrymen there: gradually, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among the
natives. He knew that under the overthrown government he had been a spy upon
Saint Antoine and Defarge's wine-shop; had received from the watchful police
such heads of information concerning Doctor Manette's imprisonment, release, and
history, as should serve him for an introduction to familiar conversation with
the Defarges; and tried them on Madame Defarge, and had broken down with them
signally. He always remembered with fear and trembling, that that terrible woman
had knitted when he talked with her, and had looked ominously at him as her
fingers moved. He had since seen her, in the Section of Saint Antoine, over and
over again produce her knitted registers, and denounce people whose lives the
guillotine then surely swallowed up. He knew, as every one employed as he was
did, that he was never safe; that flight was impossible; that he was tied fast
under the shadow of the axe; and that in spite of his utmost tergiversation and
treachery in furtherance of the reigning terror, a word might bring it down upon
him. Once denounced, and on such grave grounds as had just now been suggested to
his mind, he foresaw that the dreadful woman of whose unrelenting character he
had seen many proofs, would produce against him that fatal register, and would
quash his last chance of life. Besides
