tramping and the wild shouting of thousands of men filled all the
air with the noise of battle! Yes, here was drama in deadly
earnest--drama and tragedy and death, and the jar of mortal
fighting. And the echoes of it invaded the very sanctuary of art,
and cut athwart the music of Italy and the cadence of polite
conversation, and the shock of it endured when all the world should
have slept, and galvanised into vivid life all these sombre piles of
office buildings. It was dreadful, this labour through the night. It
had all the significance of field hospitals after the
battle--hospitals and the tents of commanding generals. The wounds
of the day were being bound up, the dead were being counted, while,
shut in their headquarters, the captains and the commanders drew the
plans for the grapple of armies that was to recommence with
daylight.

"Yes, yes, that's just what it is," continued Page. "See, there's
the Rookery, and there's the Constable Building, where Mr. Helmick
has his offices. Landry showed me it all one day. And, look back."
She raised the flap that covered the little window at the back of
the carriage. "See, down there, at the end of the street. There's
the Board of Trade Building, where the grain speculating is
done,--where the wheat pits and corn pits are."

Laura turned and looked back. On either side of the vista in
converging lines stretched the blazing office buildings. But over
the end of the street the lead-coloured sky was rifted a little. A
long, faint bar of light stretched across the prospect, and
silhouetted against this rose a sombre mass, unbroken by any lights,
rearing a black and formidable facade against the blur of light
behind it.