Rounding the last bend of the descent, the Mercury purred into the midst of a collection of horsed vehicles and frayed motors. By some unhappy chance the whole countryside seemed to have chosen Tintern as a rendezvous that Saturday. The patrons of a neighboring hotel overflowed into the roadway; the brooding peace of the dead-and-gone monks had fled before this invasion; instead of memories of mitered abbots and cowled friars there were the realities of loud-voiced grooms and porkpie-eating excursionists. "Please drive on," whispered Cynthia. "I must see Tintern another time." Although Medenham hoped to consume a precious hour or more in showing her the noble church, the cloisters, the chapter-house, the monks' parlor, and the rest of the stone records of a quiet monastic life, he realized to the full how utterly incongruous were the enthusiastic trippers with their surroundings. The car threaded their ranks gingerly, and was soon running free along the tree-shaded road to Monmouth. Happily, that delightful old town was sufficiently familiar to him in earlier days that he was now able to supplement the general knowledge of its past gleaned already by the girl's reading. He halted in front of the Welsh Gate on Monnow Bridge, and told her that although the venerable curiosity dates back to 1270 it is nevertheless the last defensive work in Britain in which serious preparations were made for civil war, as it was expected that the Chartists would march from Newport to attack Monmouth Jail in 1839. "Six hundred years," mused Cynthia aloud. "If there are sermons in stones what a history is pent in these!" "And how greatly it would differ from the accepted versions," laughed Medenham. "Do we never know the truth, then?" "Oh, yes, if we are actually mixed up in some affair of worldwide importance, but that is precisely the reason why the actors remain dumb." Oddly enough, this was the first of Medenham's utterances that Mrs. Devar approved of. "Evidently you have moved in high society, Fitzroy," she chimed in. "Yes, madam," he said. "More than once, when in a hurry, I have run madly through Mayfair." "Oh, nonsense!" she cried, resenting the studied civility of the "madam" and ruffled by the quip, "you speak of Mayfair, yet I don't suppose you really know where it is." "I shall never forget where Down Street is, I assure you," he said cheerfully. "And pray, why Down Street in particular?" "Because that is where I met Simmonds, last Wednesday, and arranged to take on his job." "In your mind, then, it figures as broken-down-street," cooed Cynthia.