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 well as from the
groups that hurried along under the shelter of the walls; and the air
was full of talking and laughter and footsteps. It meant nothing to her
at present, except inextricable confusion: the gleam of arms as a patrol
passed by; the important little group making its way with torches; the
dogs that scuffled in the roadway; the party of apprentice