"Sir, there is somebody coming," said Lizzie; "pass on as if you had been asking me the way. I'll let her know. I'll never open my lips to you more nor to any one, about her, but I'll do what you say. That's the way to the house," she added, turning, pointing out the path that led away from the side of the pond towards the Warren. He followed the indication without another word, and in a minute stood in the peaceful shadow of the deserted house. It came upon him chill, but wholesome, life reviving after the agitation of that brief encounter. Divorce--it was a bad word to breathe in such an honest place--a bad blasphemous word, worse than an oath. He had not meant to say it, nor thought of it before this meeting: but now he seemed to be pledged to this step involuntarily, unwillingly; was it by some good angel, something that was working in Chatty's interests and for her sweet sake? CHAPTER XLI. Dick went back to town on the Monday, having taken no decisive step, nor said any decisive words. All that he had done was to make it apparent that the matter was not to end there, as had seemed likely when they parted in London. Chatty now saw that it was not to be so. The thing was not to drop into the mere blank of unfulfilledness, but was to be brought to her decision, to yea or nay. This conviction, and the company of Dick in a relation which could not but be new, since it was no longer accidental, but of the utmost gravity in her life, gave a new turn altogether to her existence. The change in her was too subtle for the general eye. Even Minnie, sharp as she was, could make nothing more of it than that Chatty was "more alive looking," a conclusion which, like most things nowadays, she declared to come from Eustace. Mrs. Warrender entered with more sympathy into her daughter's life, veiled not so much by intention as by instinctive modesty and reserve from her as from all others: but even she did not know what was in Chatty's mind, the slow rising of an intense light which illuminated her as the sun lights up a fertile plain,--the low land drinking in every ray, unconscious of shadow,--making few dramatic effects, but receiving the radiance at every point. Chatty herself felt like that low-lying land. The new life suffused her altogether, drawing forth few reflections, but flooding the surface of her being, and warming her nature through and through. It was to be hers, then,--not as Minnie, not as Theo had it,--but like Shakespeare, like poetry, like that which maidens dream.