The Doctor looked at him for a moment-half inquiringly, half as if he were angry at being spoken to-and bent over his work again.
He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat; his shirt was open at the throat, as it used to be when he did that work; and even the old haggard, faded surface of face had come back to him. He worked hard-impatiently-as if in some sense of having been interrupted.
Mr. Lorry glanced at the work in his hand, and observed that it was a shoe of the old size and shape. He took up another that was lying by him, and asked what it was.
"A young lady's walking shoe," he muttered, without looking up. "It ought to have been finished long ago. Let it be."
"But, Doctor Manette. Look at me!"
He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, without pausing in his work.
"You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is not your proper occupation. Think, dear friend!"
Nothing would induce him to speak more.
He looked up, for an instant at a time, when he was requested to do so; but, no persuasion would extract a word from him.
He worked, and worked, and worked, in silence, and words fell on him as they would have fallen on an echoless wall, or on the air.