The little structure, it has been said, was screened by trees, and the place was so dark, it would have been difficult to find the door, save with the lantern's aid.
A slight shiver ran through Anna's frame as she entered the building, but she attributed the feeling to the damp atmosphere. Meanwhile, Father Norham had lighted a couple of tapers at the altar, and their feeble glimmer enabled her to survey the place.
Its simplicity and diminutive size pleased her, and reassured her. Knowing she would have to remain there alone till midnight, she might have felt some misgivings had the room been large and sombre. Fortunately, she was not aware that there was a vault beneath, in which rested the earl's ancestors. Marble tablets were on the walls, but she did not read them.
After an exhortation, to which she listened devoutly, the priest withdrew. Thus left alone, she knelt down at the altar, and was soon engrossed in prayer.
For awhile she continued thus employed, but at length a feeling of drowsiness came over her, which she found it impossible to resist.
How long she slept she could not tell, but when she awoke the place was buried in darkness.
What had happened while she slumbered? And how came the tapers to be extinguished?
Very much alarmed, she started to her feet, and somehow—though she scarcely knew how—made her way to the door.
It was fastened. Father Norham must have locked it when he went out
She was thus to be kept in that dreadful place—for dreadful it now seemed to her—till his return at midnight.