We went out of the great door of the fortress, and I felt a sense of relief.  It was good to put it all behind one.  For a long time I talked to Amroth about all my doings.  “Come,” he said at last, “this will never do!  You are becoming something of a bore!  Do you know that your talk is very provincial?  You seem to have forgotten about every one and everything except your Philips and Annas—­very worthy creatures, no doubt—­and the Master, who is a very able man, but not the little demigod you believe.  You are hypnotised!  It is indeed time for you to have a holiday.  Why, I believe you have half forgotten about me, and yet you made a great fuss when I quitted you.”

I smiled, frowned, blushed.  It was indeed true.  Now that he was with me I loved him as well, indeed better than ever; but I had not been thinking very much about him.

We went over the moorlands in the keen air, Amroth striding cleanly and lightly over the heather.  Then we began to descend into the valley, through a fine forest country, somewhat like the chestnut-woods of the Apennines.  The view was of incomparable beauty and width.  I could see a great city far out in the plain, with a river entering it and leaving it, like a ribbon of silver.  There were rolling ridges beyond.  On the left rose huge, shadowy, snow-clad hills, rising to one tremendous dome of snow.

“Where are you going to take me?” I said to Amroth.

“Never mind,” said he; “it’s my day and my plan for once.  You shall see what you shall see, and it will amuse me to hear your ingenuous conjectures.”

We were soon on the outskirts of the city we had seen, which seemed a different kind of place from any I had yet visited.  It was built, I perceived, upon an exactly conceived plan, of a stately, classical kind of architecture, with great gateways and colonnades.  There were people about, rather silent and serious-looking, soberly clad, who saluted us as we passed, but made no attempt to talk to us.  “This is rather a tiresome place, I always think,” said Amroth; “but you ought to see it.”

We went along the great street and reached a square.  I was surprised at the elderly air of all we met.  We found ourselves opposite a great building with a dome, like a church.  People were going in under the portico, and we went in with them.  They treated us as strangers, and made courteous way for us to pass.

Inside, the footfalls fell dumbly upon a great carpeted floor.  It was very like a great church, except that there was no altar or sign of worship.  At the far end, under an alcove, was a statue of white marble gleaming white, with head and hand uplifted.  The whole place had a solemn and noble air.  Out of the central nave there opened a series of great vaulted chapels; and I could now see that in each chapel there was a dark figure, in a sort of pulpit, addressing a standing audience.  There were names on scrolls over the doors of the light iron-work screens which separated the chapels from the nave, but they were in a language I did not understand.