"_
Nothing was altered, even to the dull gray weather. But, oh, the
difference to me!
I longed to play at _bouchon_ with the hackney coachmen, or at _la balle
au camp_ with my old schoolfellows. I could have even waltzed with
"Monsieur Lartigue" and "le petit Cazal."
I looked in Mere Manette's little mirror and saw my worn, gray, haggard,
old face again; and liked it, and thought it quite good-looking. I sat
down and rested by the fortifications as I had done the night before,
for I was still tired, but with a most delicious fatigue; my very
shabbiness was agreeable to me--_pauvre, mais honnete_. A convict, a
madman, but a prince among men--still the beloved of Mary!
And when at last I reached the spot I had always loved the best on earth
ever since I first saw it as a child, I fell on my knees and wept for
sheer excess of joy. It was mine indeed; it belonged to me as no land or
water had ever belonged to any man before.
Mary was not there, of course; I did not expect her.
But, strange and incomprehensible as it seems, she had forgotten her
gloves; she had left them behind her. One was on the bench, one was on
the ground; poor old gloves that had been mended, with the well-known
shape of her dear hand in them; every fold and crease preserved as in a
mould--the very cast of her finger-nails; and the scent of sandal-wood
she and her mother had so loved.
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