"Yes, it is quite true," she answered. The passage led "right across to St. Helen's," but this may be only hearsay, as it has been bricked up a number of years. Why brick up such relics of mediævalism? They are of no use, answers the practical person, so why keep them? and he might add, just for the edification of a few Paul Prys like yourself. Subterranean passages, secret drawers, sliding panels, concealed cupboards, all, alas! have gone out of fashion. They belong to a childish age which we have outgrown. Mrs. D. said she had no patience with people who were always putting their noses into holes and corners, expressing her conviction that such passages had dark histories in connection with "them monks," and after this I had not the courage to name my desire to explore the flight of steps leading from the belfry to the passage. I think some day, though, I must return, without Mrs. D., and see if I can get round that caretaker to show me the spot. How infinitely poorer the city would be without these old landmarks which have stood their ground so obstinately against the pushing, vulgar spirit of progress. What would the streets be like without the surprises they provide? An ancient wall in which there is a door leading to silence and the company of those for whom the fight is over. A sooty graveyard where the sparrows quarrel in the plane trees at dusk, and the mouldering tombstones stir the imagination to dreams and reflection. A spire or tower rising like a challenge above the roofs of offices and warehouses. Those old churches--one never goes a walk in the city without playing hide and seek with them. They lurk round corners and materialise under one's very nose out of blank walls. They are as much a part of this city of ours as are the men and women who in the dim ages trod its streets and made its history. Yet those same sturdy old churches are, to-day, as criminals awaiting their death sentence in the dock. There are those who would treat many of them, as poor old Stow's body was treated when it was moved, "to make room for another". May such an act of vandalism be delayed until I too have to go that another man may take my place. Meanwhile, dear Agatha, I am ever your devoted, GEORGE. CHAPTER IX CARRINGTON MEWS, SHEPHERD MARKET, _19th December._ My Dear Agatha,--I am sorry you accuse me of levity. It wasn't in human nature to resist the unique opportunity for mischief provided by the meeting between Katherine and Mrs. D. I followed it up with lunch in Curzon Street, during which I discovered in myself a quite new and marked talent for fiction. I won't say more out of consideration for your scruples, but I may mention it's a long while since I had such an excellent lunch. It must be many days, too, since Katherine was provided with so surprising a succession of thrills in the course of an hour and a half. [Illustration: THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL.]