This building, expected by us and known to all, astonished us as much as the walls of Sheddad the son of Ad unexpectedly towering would have done. Sometimes in our rare London travels we had a glimpse of a side street, a row of silent houses all combined as it were into one gray palace, a dark doorway, a gorgeous window, a surprising man disappearing.... We looked, and though we never said so, we believed that we alone had seen these things, that they had never been seen before. We should not have expected to see them there if we went again. Many and many a time have we looked, have I alone in more recent years looked, for certain things thus revealed to us in passing. Either it happened that the thing was different from what it had once been, or it had disappeared altogether. Now and then venturing down a few side streets where the system was rectangular and incapable of deceiving, we came on a church full of sound or gloomily silent--I do not know how to describe the mingled calm and pride in the minds of the discoverers. Some of the very quiet, apparently uninhabited courts, for example, made us feel that corners of London had been deserted and forgotten, that anyone could hide away there, living in secrecy as in a grave. Knowing how we ourselves, walking or talking together, grew oblivious of all things that were not within our brains, or vividly and desirably before our eyes, feeling ourselves isolated in proud delight, deserted and forgotten of the multitude who were not us, we imagined, I suppose, that houses and other things could have a similar experience, or could share it with us, were we to seek refuge there like Morgan in his mountain tower. The crowd passing and surrounding us consisted of beings unlike us, incapable of our isolation or delight: the retired houses whispering in quiet alleys must be the haunt of spirits unlike the crowd and more like us, or, if not, at least they must be waiting in readiness for such. I recognised in them something that linked them to Abercorran House and distinguished them from Brockenhurst. Had these favoured houses been outwardly as remarkable as they were in spirit they might have pleased us more, but I am not certain. Philip had his house with the windows that were as the days of the year. But I came only once near to seeing, with outward eyes, such a house as perhaps we desired without knowing it. Suddenly, over the tops of the third or fourth and final ridge of roofs, visible a quarter of a mile away from one of the windows at Abercorran House, much taller than any of the throng of houses and clear in the sky over them, I saw a castle on a high rock. It resembled St Michael’s Mount, only the rock was giddier and had a narrower summit, and the castle’s three clustered round towers of unequal height stood up above it like three fingers above a hand. When I pointed it out to Philip he gave one dark, rapid glance as of mysterious understanding, and looked at me, saying slowly: