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She reached the top at last, too hot from walking to flinch at the shock of the wind, or to notice that the sun had gone in: and found her goal again—twin towers and arched body—yet so strangely altered in an afternoon, that, as she looked, she gave a cry of dismay. It had been so near, so clear, a parrot’s flight from Beech Hill, but now, withdrawn to an immense distance, it rose without a glitter from the iron rim of the world, a grey, frozen blur upon the sullen sky.

She stared fearfully.

She couldn’t ... she hadn’t ... she couldn’t have made a mistake?... Yet what had happened?... What in the name of enchantment had happened to the Crystal Palace, the Cœlestial City, the bright and shining heaven?...

Enchantment! In a flash her scared wits seized at the only endurable explanation. Enchantment! Of course! Of course! Oh, blessedly of course! What was she thinking of so soon to forget Christian, and her Shepherds?...

Beware that ye steppe.... How they had rubbed it in too! And she hadn’t come to a single danger yet except motor-cars and the cow with the leering eye; did she suppose she was to win through without a qualm? Foolish Laura, to forget that between Delectable Mountains and the Gates of the City lies, with all its bewilderments, the Enchanted Ground.