The sense of unreality was deeper than ever on Marjorie’s mind.  One incredible thing after another, known to her only in the past by rumour and description, and imagined in a frame of glory, was taking shape before her eyes....  She was in London; she had slept in Cheapside; she had talked with Father Campion; he was with her now; this was the Tower of London that lay before her, a monstrous huddle of grey towers and battlemented walls along which passed the scarlet of a livery and the gleam of arms.

All the way that they had walked, her eyes had been about her everywhere—­the eyes of a startled child, through which looked the soul of a woman.  She had seen the folks go past like actors in a drama—­London merchants, apprentices, a party of soldiers, a group on horseback:  she had seen a congregation pour out of the doors of some church whose name she had asked and had forgotten again; the cobbled patches of street had been a marvel to her; the endless roofs, the white and black walls, the leaning windows, the galleries where heads moved; the vast wharfs; the crowding masts, resembling a stripped forest; the rolling-gaited sailors; and, above all, the steady murmur of voices and footsteps, never ceasing, beyond which the crowing of cocks and the barking of dogs sounded far off and apart—­these things combined to make a kind of miracle that all at once delighted, oppressed and bewildered her.

Here and there some personage had been pointed out to her by the trim, merry gentleman who walked by her side with his sword swinging. (Anthony went with his sister just behind, as they threaded their way through the crowded streets, and the two men-servants followed.) She saw a couple of City dignitaries in their furs, with stavesmen to clear their road; a little troop of the Queen’s horse, blazing with colour, under the command of a young officer who might have come straight from Romance.  But she was more absorbed—­or, rather, she returned every instant to the man who walked beside her with such an air and talked so loudly and cheerfully.  Certainly, it seemed to her, his disguise was perfect, and himself the best part of it.  She compared him in her mind with a couple of ministers, splendid and awful in their gowns and ruffs, whom they had met turning into one of the churches just now, and smiled at the comparison; and yet perhaps these were preachers too, and eloquent in their own fashion.

And now, here was the Tower—­the end of all things, so far as London was concerned.  Beyond it she saw the wide rolling hills, the bright reaches of the river, and the sparkle of Placentia, far away.

“Her Grace is at Westminster these days,” exclaimed the priest; “she is moving to Hampton Court in a day or two; so I doubt not we shall be able to go in and see a little.  We shall see, at least, the outside of the Paradise where so many holy ones have lived and died.  There are three or four of them here now; but the most of them are in the Fleet or the Marshalsea.”