Margaret's. It was only as they approached Whitehall that
she became aware of a light upon the water which was not the reflection
of daybreak, and, looking suddenly up, she saw the fierce glare of a
conflagration in the eastern sky, and cried--
"There is a fire, my lord!--a great fire, I doubt, in the city."
The long roof and massive tower of St Paul's stood dark against the vivid
splendour of that sky, and every timber in the scaffolding showed like a
black lattice across the crimson and sulphur of raging flames.
Fareham looked round, without moving his sculls from the rowlocks.
"A great fire in verity, mistress! Would God it meant the fulfilment of
prophecy!"
"What prophecy, sir?"
"The end of the world, with which we are threatened in this year. God, how
the flames rage and mount! Would it were the great fire, and He had come
to judge us, and to empty the vials of His wrath upon profligates and
seducers!"
He looked at the face opposite, radiant with reflected rose and gold,
supernal in that strange light, and, oh, so calm in every line and feature,
the large dark eyes meeting his with a gaze that seemed to him half
indignant, half reproachful.
"Oh, what hypocrites these women are!" he told himself.
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