She had need of me again. She had claimed me again. I felt all the old love, all the old devotion owning her power once more. Whatever had mortified¹ or angered me at our last interview was forgiven and forgotten now. My whole being still thrilled with the mingled² awe³ and rapture⁴ of beholding⁵ the Vision of her that had come to me for the second time. The minutes passed — and I stood by the fire like a man entranced; thinking only of her spoken words, “Remember me. Come to me;” looking only at her mystic writing, “At the month’s end, In the shadow of Saint Paul’s.”

The month’s end was still far off; the apparition⁷ of her had shown itself to me, under some subtle prevision of trouble that was still in the future. Ample time was before me for the pilgrimage to which I was self-dedicated already — my pilgrimage to the shadow of Saint Paul’s. Other men, in my position, might have hesitated as to the right understanding of the place to which they were bidden. Other men might have wearied their memories by recalling the churches, the institutions, the streets, the towns in foreign countries, all consecrated⁸ to Christian⁹ reverence¹⁰ by the great apostle’s name, and might have fruitlessly asked themselves in which direction they were first to turn their steps. No such difficulty troubled me. My first conclusion was the one conclusion that was acceptable to my mind. “Saint Paul’s” meant the famous Cathedral of London. Where the shadow of the great church fell, there, at the month’s end, I should find her, or the trace of her. In London once more, and nowhere else, I was

分享到：