The burning wood shed a pleasant odour which mingled pleasantly with that of the dressing-table; and she wandered about the room, her mind filled with vague meditations, studying the old engravings, principally pictures of dogs and horses, hounds and men, going out to shoot in bygone costumes, with long-eared spaniels to find the game for them.  There was a multitude of these pictures on the walls, and Evelyn wondered who was her next-door neighbour.  Was it Owen?  Or was he down at the end of the passage?  In a house like Thornton Grange the name of every one was put on his or her door, so that visitors should not wander into the wrong room by accident, creating dismay and provoking scandal.  Owen, where was he?  A prayer was offered up that he might be at the other end of the house.  It would not be right if Lady Ascott had placed him in the adjoining room, it really would not be right, and she regretted her visit.  What evil thing had tempted her into this house, where everything was an appeal to the senses, everything she had seen since she had entered the house—­food, wine, gowns?  There was, however, a bolt to her door, and she drew it, forgetful that sin visits us in solitude, and more insidiously than when we are in the midst of crowds; and as she dozed in the scented room, amid the fine linen, silk, and laces, the sins which for generations had been committed in this house seemed to gather substance, and even shape; a strange phantasmata trooped past her, some seeming to bewail their sins, while others indulged themselves with each other, or turned to her, inciting her to sin with them, until one of them whispered in her ear that Owen was coming to her room, and then she knew that at his knock her strength would fail her, and she would let him in.

Her temptations disappeared and then returned to her; at last she saw Owen coming towards her.  He leaned over the bed, and she saw his lips, and his voice sounded in her ears.  It told her that he had been waiting for her; why hadn’t she come to his room?  And why had he found her door bolted?  Then like one bereft of reason, she slipped out of bed and went towards the door, seeing him in the lucidity of her dream clearly at the end of the passage; it was not until her hand rested on the handle of his door that a singing began in the night.  The first voice was joined by another, and then by another, and she recognised the hymn, for it was one, the Veni Creator, and the singers were nuns.  The singing grew more distinct, the singers were approaching her, and she retreated before them to her room; the room filled with plain chant, and then the voices seemed to die or to be borne away on the wind which moaned about the eaves and aloft in the chimneys.  Turning in her bed, she saw the dying embers.  She was in her room—­only a dream, no more.  Was that all? she asked as she lay in her bed singing herself to sleep, into a sleep so deep that she did not wake from it until her maid came to ask her if she would have breakfast in her room or if she were going down to breakfast.