d towers tell, if the echoes whispering through them
could crystallize into words!

There Queen Jeanne of Naples--that fateful Marie Stuart of
Provence--stood in her youth and beauty before her accusers, knowing she
must buy her pardon, if for pardon she could hope. There the wretched
Bishop of Cahors suffered tortures incredible for plots his enemies
vowed he had conceived against the Pope. There came messages from
Western Kings and Eastern Emperors; there Bertrand du Guesclin, my
favourite hero, was excommunicated: and there great Rienzi lay in
prison.

"Now I think we might risk going to the Palace," said Mr. Dane, when we
had stood gazing in silence for more minutes than we could well afford.
So we made haste back, and walked up to the Rochers des Doms, where we
lurked cautiously in the handsome modern gardens, glorying in the view
over the old and new bridges, and to far off Villeneuve, where the Man
in the Iron Mask was first imprisoned. When we had admired the statue of
Althen the Persian, with his hand full of the beneficent madder that did
so much for Provence, we were rewarded for our patience by seeing Sir
Samuel and Lady Turnour rush out from the Papal Palace, looking furious.

"They look like that, because they've been inside," said the chauffeur.
"Their souls aren't artistic enough to resent consciously the ruin and
degradation of the place, but even they can be depressed by the hideous
whitewashed barracks which were once splendid rooms, worthy of kings.
You will look as they do if you go in."

"I hope my cheeks wouldn't be dark purple and my nose a pale lilac!" I
exclaimed.

"You're twenty, at most, and Lady Turnour's forty-five, at least," said
my brother. "You can stand the pinch of Mistral; but the inside of that
noble old pile is enough to turn the hair gray. It would be much more
original to let your imagination draw the picture."

"Then I will!" I cried, knowing that nothing pleases a man more in a
girl than taking his advice. By the lateness of the hour we judged that
the Turnours must have visited the Cathedral before they "did" the
Palace, so we went boldly on to Notre Dame des Doms, beloved of
Charlemagne.

No wonder, I said, that he had thought it worth restoring from the
ruins Saracens had left! Nothing could be more glorious than the
situation of the historic church, once first in importance, perhaps, in
all Christendom; and nothing could be more purely classic than the west
porch.