the gas-lamps which it supports,
might be the entrance to some fastness of ignoble misery. The road is
narrow, and after nightfall has but little traffic.

Gilbert walked as far as the middle of the bridge, then leaned upon the
parapet and looked northwards. The tide was running out; it swept
darkly onwards to the span of Westminster Bridge, whose crescent of
lights it repeated in long unsteady rays. Along the base of the Houses
of Parliament the few sparse lamps contrasted with the line of
brightness on the Embankment opposite. The Houses themselves rose
grandly in obscure magnitude; the clock-tower beaconed with two red
circles against the black sky, the greater tower stood night-clad, and
between them were the dim pinnacles, multiplied in shadowy grace.
Farther away Gilbert could just discern a low, grey shape, that
resting-place of poets and of kings which to look upon filled his heart
with worship.

In front of the Embankment, a few yards out into the stream, was moored
a string of barges; between them and the shore the reflected lamp-light
made one unbroken breadth of radiance, blackening the mid-current. From
that the eye rose to St. Thomas's Hospital, spreading block after
block, its windows telling of the manifold woe within. Nearer was the
Archbishop's Palace, dark, lifeless; the roofs were defined against a
sky made lurid by the streets of Lambeth. On the pier below signalled
two crimson lights.

The church bells kept up their clangorous discord, softened at times by
the wind. A steamboat came fretting up the stream; when it had passed
under the bridge, its spreading track caught the reflected gleams and
flung them away to die on unsearchable depths. Then issued from beneath
a barge with set sail, making way with wind and tide; in silence it
moved onwards, its sail dark and ghastly, till the further bridge
swallowed it.

The bells ceased. Gilbert bent his head and listened to the rush of the
water, voiceful, mysterious. Sometimes he had stood there and wished
that the dread tide could whelm him. His mood was far other now; some
power he did not understand had brought him here as to the place where
he could best realise this great joy that had befallen him.

But the wind blew piercingly, and when at length he moved from the
parapet, he found that his arms were quite numb; doubtless he had stood
longer than he thought. Instead of returning by the direct way, he
walked along the Embankment It was all but d