It was the unutterable grief of David, and of my poor friend, that they could not save those they loved by dying for them. It was the joy of Sydney Carton that he could! He contrived to enter the Conciergerie; made his way to Darnay's cell; changed clothes with him; hurried him forth; and then resigned himself to his fate. Later on, a fellow prisoner, a little seamstress, approached him. She had known Darnay and had learned to trust him. She asked if she might ride with him to the scaffold. 'I am not afraid,' she said, 'but I am little and weak, and, if you will let me ride with you and hold your hand, it will give me courage!' As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in them, and then astonishment. She had discovered that he was not Darnay. 'Are you dying for him?' she whispered. 'For him--and his wife and child. Hush! Yes!' 'Oh, you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?' 'Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last!' Nobody has ever read _A Tale of Two Cities_ without feeling that this was the moment of Sydney Carton's supreme triumph. 'It is,' he said--and they are the last words in the book--'it is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done!' He had never tasted a joy to be compared with this. He was able to save those he loved by dying for them! _That_ is precisely the joy of the Cross! _That_ was the light that shone upon the Saviour's path through all the darkness of the world's first Easter. _That_ is why, when He took the bread and wine--the emblems of His body about to be broken and His blood about to be shed--He gave thanks. It is _that_--and that alone--that accounts for the fact that He entered the Garden of Gethsemane with a song upon His lips. It was for the joy that was set before Him that He endured the Cross, despising its shame! 'Death!' He said. 'What of Death? _I am the Life_, not only of Myself, but of all who place their hands in Mine! 'The Grave! What of the Grave? _I am the Resurrection!_ '_I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die._' He felt that it was a great thing--a very great thing--to be able to save those He loved by dying for them. III