Union Square, the leafy frond-masses that marked the one-time course
of Twenty-Third Street, the forest in Madison Square, and the
truncated column of the tower where no longer Diana turned her
huntress bow to every varying breeze.

They heard their own hearts beat. The intake of their breath sounded
strangely loud. Above them, on a broken cornice, some resting swallows
twittered.

All at once the girl spoke.

"See the Flatiron Building over there!" said she. "What a hideous
wreck!"

From Stern she took the telescope, adjusted it, and gazed minutely at
the shattered pile of stone and metal.

Blotched as with leprosy stood the walls, whence many hundreds of
blocks had fallen into Broadway forming a vast moraine that for some
distance choked that thoroughfare.

In numberless places the steel frame peered through. The whole roof
had caved in, crushing down the upper stories, of which only a few
sparse upstanding metal beams remained.

The girl's gaze was directed at a certain spot which she knew well.

"Oh, I can even see--into some of the offices on the eighteenth
floor!" cried she. "There, _look?_" And she pointed. "That one near
the front! I--I used to know--"