“What is this decree that the smith spoke of?” Darnay asked the postmaster, when he had thanked him, and stood beside him in the yard. “Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants.” “When passed?” “On the fourteenth.” “The day I left England!” “Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will be others—if there are not already—banishing all emigrants, and condemning all to death who return. That is what he meant when he said your life was not your own.”
