selves just in time
before the fall of the water would have hindered their passage, leaving
out of sight the grey sunlit heap of buildings from which they had come.
All about them the river was gay with shipping. Wherries, like clumsy
water-beetles, lurched along out of the current, or slipped out suddenly
to make their way across from one stairs to another; a great barge,
coming down-stream, grew larger every instant, its prow bright with
gilding, and the throb of the twelve oars in the row-locks coming to
them like the grunting of a beast. On either side of the broad stream
rose the houses and the churches, those on this side visible down to
their shining window-panes in the sunlight, and the very texture of
their tiled roofs; those on the other a mere huddle of countless walls
and gables, in the shadow; and between them showed the leafless trees,
stretches of green meadow, across which moved tiny figures, and the
brown flats of the marshes beyond, broken here and there by outlying
villages a mile or two away. Behind them now towered the great buildings
on London Bridge--the chapel, the houses, the old gateway on the south
end, above which the impaled heads of traitors stood out against the
bright sky. It was a tolerable crop just now, the priest had said,
bitterly smiling. But, above all else, as the boat moved up, Marjorie
kept her eyes fixed on far-off Westminster, on the grey towers and the
white walls where Elizabeth reigned and Saint Edward slept; while within
her mind, clear as a picture, she saw still the empty court, as she had
seen it when the priest fetched them out again from the church--empty at
last of the hateful presence which he had faced so confidently.

* * * * *

"It appeared to me best to speak with him openly," said the priest
quietly, as they had waited ten minutes later on the wharf outside the
Tower, while the men ran to make ready their boat. "I do not know why,
but I suppose I am one of those who better like their danger in front
than behind. I knew him at once; I have had him pointed out to me two or
three times before. So I looked him in the eyes, and asked him whether
some ladies from the country might be permitted to see the White Tower,
and to whom we had best apply. He told me that was not his affair, and
looked me up and down as he said it. And then he went his way to ... the
White Tower, where I doubt not he had business."

"He said no more?" asked An