In his waking life, a friend named Clinton invites the young man to his family's house in the country.
Although the friend tries to assure him it was only a nightmare, they find the portrait has returned to the wall and there is a moldy burial shroud on the floor.
An epilogue describes an old newspaper story about a Mrs. Stone, rumoured as an evil person, who died in a nearby village and was buried in the local churchyard.
Eventually the authorities gave up and interred the coffin in unhallowed ground, which brought an end to the unusual phenomenon.
The Modern Language Review in 1918 stated that with The Room in the Tower, "Mr. E. F. Benson also has established an undeniable right to inclusion in a study of the supernatural in fiction".