But in the evening, when all was still, Lottie, who had been sitting at home working and thinking till her heart was sick and her brain throbbing, put on her hat and went out in the dusk to get the air at the door. It was a lovely, quiet night, the moon rising over the grey pinnacles of the Abbey, marking out its great shadow upon the Dean’s Walk, and the mignonette smelling sweet in all the little gardens. A few of the old Chevaliers were still about, breathing the sweetness of the evening like Lottie herself. Captain Temple, who was among them, came up to her with his old-fashioned fatherly gallantry as soon as he saw her. “Will you take a turn, my dear?” he said. He had no child, and she had never had, so to speak, any father, at least in this way. They went up and down the terrace pavement, and then they crossed the road to the Abbey, from which, though it was so late, the tones of the great organ were beginning to steal out upon the night. “Is this a ghost that is playing, or what can the Signor be thinking of?” Captain Temple said. Old Wykeham, that gruff old guardian of the sacred place, was standing with his keys in his hands at the south door. He had not his usual rusty gown nor his velvet cap, being then in an unofficial capacity; but Wykeham would not have been Wykeham without his keys. And though he was gruff he knew to whom respect was due. “Yessir, there’s something going on inside. One o’ the Signor’s fancies. He have got some friends inside, a playing his voluntaries to them. And if you like, Captain, I will let you in in a moment, sir.” “Shall we go, my dear?” the old Captain said. And next moment they were in the great gloom of the Abbey, which was so different in its solemnity from the soft summer dark outside. There was a gleam of brilliant light in the organ-loft where the Signor was playing, which threw transverse rays out on either side into the darkness, showing vaguely the carved work of the canopies over the stalls, and the faded banners that hung over them. Down in the deep gloom of the choir below a few figures were dimly perceptible. Lottie and her kind old companion did not join these privileged listeners. They kept outside in the nave, where the moon, which had just climbed the height of the great windows, had suddenly burst in, throwing huge dimly-coloured pictures of the painted glass upon the floor. Lottie, who was not so sensible as she might have been, preferred this partial light, notwithstanding the mystic charm of the darkness, which was somewhat awful to look in upon through the open door of the choir. She put her hand, a little tremulous, on the old Captain’s arm, and stood and listened, feeling all her troubles calmed. What was it that thus calmed her perturbed soul? She thought it was the awe of the place, the spell of the darkness and the moonlight, the music that made it all wonderful. The Signor was playing a strange piece of old music when the two came in.