That brought them to a discussion of plans in which Dion was talked of with warm affection and admiration by Rosamund; and all the time she was talking, Canon Wilton saw the beautiful woman in the chair listening to the distant organ.  He knew of a house that was to be let in the Precincts, but that night he did not mention it.  Something prevented him from doing so—­something against which he struggled, but which he failed to overcome.

When they separated it was nearly eleven o’clock.  As Rosamund took her silver candlestick from the Canon at the foot of the shallow oak staircase she said: 

“I’ve had such a happy evening!”

It was a very sweet compliment very sweetly paid.  No man could have been quite indifferent to it.  Canon Wilton was not.  As he looked at Rosamund a voice within him said: 

“That’s a very dear woman.”

It spoke undeniable truth.  Yet another voice whispered: 

“Oh, if I could change her!”

But that was impossible.  The Canon knew that, for he was very sincere with himself; and he realized that the change he wanted to see could only come from within, could never be imposed by him from without upon the mysterious dweller in the Temple of Rosamund.

That night Rosamund undressed very slowly and “pottered about” in her room, doing dreamily unnecessary things.  She heard the chimes, and she heard the watchman calling the midnight hour near her window as “Great John” lifted up his voice.  In the drawers where her clothes were laid the Canon’s housekeeper had put lavender.  She smelt it as she listened to the watchman’s voice, shutting her eyes.  Presently she drew aside curtain and blind and looked out of the window.  She saw the outline of part of the great Cathedral with the principal tower, the home of “Great John”; she felt the embracing arms of the Precincts; and when she knelt down to say her prayers she thought: 

“Here is a place where I can really pray.”

Nuns surely are helped by their convents and monks by the peace of their whitewashed cells.

“It is only in sweet places of retirement that one can pray as one ought to pray,” thought Rosamund that night as she lay in bed.

She forgot that the greatest prayer ever offered up was uttered on a cross in the midst of a shrieking crowd.

On the following day she went to the morning service in the Cathedral, and afterwards heard something which filled her with joyful anticipation.  Canon Wilton told her there was a house to let in the Precincts.

“I’ll take it,” said Rosamund at once.  “Esme Darlington has found me a tenant for No. 5, an old friend of his, or rather two old friends, Sir John and Lady Tenby.  Where is it?”

He took her to see it.

The house in question had been occupied by the widow of a Dean, who had recently been driven by her health to “relapse upon Bournemouth.”  It was a small old house with two very large rooms—­one was the drawing-room, the other a bed-room.