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The hty teo, when the breath of annihilation had swept a withering blast over the face of the earth The broad grounds and driveways that had led up to the entrance had, of course, long since absolutely vanished under rank growths

Grass flourished in the gutters and on the Gothic finials; the gargoyles were bearded with vines and fern-clusters; the flying buttresses and etable mold that had for centuries accumulated on the steps and in the vestibule--for the oaken doors had cruht-flowered plant raised its blossoreat rose- in the eastern facade had long since been shattered out of their frames by hail and tempest But the main body of the cathedral seemed yet as massively intact as when the master-builders of the twentieth century had taken down the last scaffold, and when the gigantic organ had first pealed its "Laus Deo" through the vaulted apse

Together they entered the vast silent space, and--awed despite thenificent temple ever built in the western hemisphere

The marble floor was covered noindrows of dead leaves and pine-spills, and with the litter from myriads of birds'-nests that sheltered thealleries, and on the lofty capitals of the fluted pillars which rose, vistalike, a hundred feet above the clear-story, spraying out into a wondrous cos full two hundred feet in air

Through the shattered s broad slants of sunshine fell athwart the walls and floor Ss chirped and twittered far aloft, or winged their say through the dusky upper spaces, passing at will in or out thesince fallen

An air ofeverywhere; it see to receive the now, as it had waited a thousand years, patiently, inexorably, untiringly for those to come who should some day reclaim the hidden secrets in the crypt, once more awaken hu!" breathed Stern, as if the thought hung pregnant in the very air "Waiting all these long centuries--for us! For you, Beatrice, for me! And we are here, at last, we of the newer time; and here we shall be one The sy toward the infinite, the hope of life eternal, the reat temple, welcome us! Come!"