"A Tale of Two Cities"
by Charles Dickens

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     Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, on the moving patch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at the roadside retreating by jerks, the night shadows outside the coach would fall into the train of the night shadows within. The real Banking-house by Temple Bar, the real business of the past day, the real strong rooms, the real express sent after him, and the real message returned, would all be there. Out of the midst of them, the ghostly face would rise, and he would accost it again.

     "Buried how long?"

     "Almost eighteen years."

 

     "I hope you care to live?"

     "I can't say."

     Dig--dig--dig--until an impatient movement from one of the two passengers would admonish him to pull up the window, draw his arm securely through the leathern strap, and speculate upon the two slumbering forms, until his mind lost its hold of them, and they again slid away into the bank and the grave.

     "Buried how long?"

     "Almost eighteen years."

     "You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?"

 
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