Though Marjorie had nodded only when the spires of London shone up suddenly in the evening light, a sharp internal interest awakened in her.  It was as astonishing as a miracle that the end should be in sight; the past ten days had made it seem to her as if all things which she desired must eternally recede....  She touched her horse unconsciously, and stared out between his ears, sitting upright and alert again.

It was not a great deal that met the eye, but it was so disposed as to suggest a great deal more.  Far away to the right lay a faint haze, and in it appeared towers and spires, with gleams of sharp white here and there, where some tall building rose above the dark roofs.  To the left again appeared similar signs of another town—­the same haze, towers and spires—­linked to the first.  She knew what they were; she had heard half a dozen times already of the two towns that made London—­running continuously in one long line, however, which grew thin by St. Mary’s Hospital and St. Martin’s, she was told—­the two troops of houses and churches that had grown up about the two centres of Court and City, Westminster and the City itself.  But it was none the less startling to see these with her proper eyes.

Presently, in spite of herself, as she saw the spire of St. Clement’s Dane, where she was told they must turn City-wards, she began to talk, and Anthony to answer.

II

Dark was beginning to fall and the lamps to be lighted as they rode in at last half an hour later, across the Fleet Ditch, through Ludgate and turned up towards Cheapside.  They were to stay at an inn where Anthony was accustomed to lodge when he was not with friends—­an inn, too, of which the landlord was in sympathy with the old ways, and where friends could come and go without suspicion.  It was here, perhaps, that letters would be waiting for them from Rheims.

Marjorie had known Derby only among the greater towns, and neither this nor the towns where she had stayed, night by night, during the journey, had prepared her in the least for the amazing rush and splendour of the City itself.  A fine, cold rain was falling, and this, she was told, had driven half the inhabitants within doors; but even so, it appeared to her that London was far beyond her imaginings.  Beneath here, in the deep and narrow channel of houses up which they rode, narrowed yet further by the rows of stalls that were ranged along the pathways on either side, the lamps were kindling swiftly, in windows as well as in the street; here and there hung great flaring torches, and the vast eaves and walls overhead shone in the light of the fires where the rich gilding threw it back.  Beyond them again, solemn and towering, leaned over the enormous roofs; and everywhere, it seemed to her fresh from the silence and solitude of the country, countless hundreds of moving faces were turned up to her, from doorways and windows, as