CHAPTER XVII
CAREW’S OFFER

, EXT morning Carew donned his plum-colored cloak,

and with Nick’s hand held tightly in his own went
out of the door and down the steps into a drifting fog
which filled the street, the bandy-legged man with the
ribbon in his ear following close upon their heels.

People passed them like shadows in the mist, and all
the houses were a blur until they came into a wide, open
place where the wind blew free above a wall with many
great gates.

In the middle of this open place a huge gray building
stood, staring out over the housetops—a great cathedral,
wonderful and old. Its walls were dark with time and
smoke and damp, and the lofty tower that rose above it
was in part but a hollow shell split by lightning and black-
ened by fire. But crowded between its massive buttresses
were booths and chapmen’s stalls; against its hoary side
a small church leaned like a child against a mother’s
breast; and in and round about it eddied a throng of
men like ants upon a busy hill.

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