They dropped down a long hill in the dusk, and suddenly Ursula recognised on her right hand, below in the hollow, the form of Southwell Minster.
“Are we here!” she cried with pleasure.
The rigid, sombre, ugly cathedral was settling under the gloom of the coming night, as they entered the narrow town, the golden lights showed like slabs of revelation, in the shop-windows.
“Father came here with mother,” she said, “when they first knew each other. He loves it—he loves the Minster. Do you?”
“Yes. It looks like quartz crystals sticking up out of the dark hollow. We’ll have our high tea at the Saracen’s Head.”
As they descended, they heard the Minster bells playing a hymn, when the hour had struck six.
Glory to thee my God this night
For all the blessings of the light—
So, to Ursula’s ear, the tune fell out, drop by drop, from the unseen sky on to the dusky town. It was like dim, bygone centuries sounding. It was all so far off. She stood in the old yard of the inn, smelling of straw and stables and petrol. Above, she could see the first stars. What was it all? This was no actual world, it was the dream-world of one’s childhood—a great circumscribed reminiscence. The world had become unreal. She herself was a strange, transcendent reality.
They sat together in a little parlour by the fire.
“Is it true?” she said, wondering.