- Our next epigraph comes to us from the pen of Christabel LaMotte. It's a short poem that compares the lives and deaths of men and women. As Christabel writes, although men have the opportunity to die public, possibly even heroic, deaths, the "doom" of women is "To Drag a Long Life out / In a Dark Room."
- Speaking of dragging a long life out in a dark room, Chapter 7 opens with a description of Beatrice Nest—the unfortunate Ellen Ash scholar who has spent her career slowly sifting through the journals of Randolph Henry Ash's wife.
- Roland pops in to Beatrice's office to ask her a question. Specifically, he wants to know if Ellen Ash ever wrote anything about Christabel LaMotte in her journals.
- When Beatrice checks her card index—the complicated cataloguing system that most of Possession's scholarly characters use to organize their research—she finds that Ellen Ash does mention Christabel LaMotte in her journals.
- As Beatrice tells Roland, Ellen read LaMotte's epic poem The Fairy Melusina and made some comments on it in her journal.
- Beatrice agrees to let Roland sit in her office to read through Ellen's thoughts on The Fairy Melusina.
- While they're making some space within all of Beatrice's books and papers, Mortimer Cropper arrives to take Beatrice to lunch.
- Not surprisingly, Cropper is curious to know why Roland, a Randolph Henry Ash scholar, is looking for references to Christabel LaMotte, but Roland doesn't give anything away.
- After Cropper and Beatrice leave, Roland settles in to read Ellen Ash's review of The Fairy Melusina. It's clear that she admired it very much.
- Later that day, Roland returns to his apartment and finds a letter from Lady Joan Bailey waiting for him. The letter contains an invitation for him to return to Seal Court in January, along with Maud, to read the rest of the Ash-LaMotte letters.
- As Roland considers what to do, a red sports car pulls up outside of the apartment. From the basement windows, Roland can see Val's feet and legs emerge from it, along with those of an unknown but obviously well-dressed man.
- Roland comes out to greet them, and Val introduces him to Euan MacIntyre: a handsome young lawyer she's been working for as one of her many temp jobs.
- After Euan leaves, Roland and Val soon start to bicker.
- In an effort to keep the peace, Roland persuades Val to head to bed. As the novel's narrator tells us: "There were two ways out of this, a row, or making love, and the second was more conducive to eventual dinner and a peaceful evening's work and the eventual broaching of the Lincolnshire project" (7.110).
- Talk about romance.