h religious
fervour he had quoted the Scripture aloud, as he had often heard such
people do. He told himself it was mere fancy that was the cause of the
belief that something was _shining_ around the man's head. As he argued
these things away, and banished the face of his visitor, a certain sort
of reason usurped his place. But he did not feel comfortable, however,
he fell short of any form of fear.

It was O'Hagan's whole business to find desolate corners, where he could
sleep without the fear of interruption by the police; and hence being in
a part of the country that he knew well, he bethought himself suddenly
of the great barn next to the mansion house at Tilney St. Lawrence. It
was always full of good hay, as large as a barrack and no thoroughfare
passed within a quarter of a mile of it. In such a place, and with the
scent of the hay to lull him, O'Hagan threw his tired body down, and
soon lost all the cares of the world in complete repose.

All his life O'Hagan had been a habitual dreamer; the nights were few,
that is to say, when on awakening he did not find that some mental
traffics and discoveries had been his, and at times, the whole night
through he would meet with most dazzling adventures. In prison his
dreams had been a great solace to him, and each night he had settled
down to devote the dark hours to the cultivation of joyous dreams. He
was one of those men who went to sleep fair and square, and looked for
dreams. But as O'Hagan stretched in the hay, things were revealed to him
that were beyond all dreams, and of course he could not keep the
strange priest out of the vision. It opened with finding himself in
front of the doors of an old church, where, he understood, he was going
to hide from someone who wanted to kill him. He knocked on the door and
the man who opened the door was the very priest he had seen in the
afternoon. He asked him to step in and instantly turned round and walked
up the dimly lit aisle, and O'Hagan understood that he had to follow. In
silence they passed through a small arch in the chancel and mounted a
narrow oak staircase with many corners and tortuous turns and arrived at
a small landing with a studded door set in it. Quite inexplicably
O'Hagan's heart sank at the sight of it. However, the priest unlocked
and opened it, and held it open for him to enter, and without coming in
himself, closed it. It was a small oak room with a stone floor, and a
curious smell at once attracted h