Hill marshalled me up the staircase. It had been decided that I was to have the "blue room." The stairs terminated in a wide landing. The library and the east wing lay to the right, as we ascended; the long gallery on the left. Hill passed two chamber-doors, and opened a third, that of the blue room. It was as little calculated for immediate occupation as any room can well be; the whole of the furniture being covered up with clean sheets of linen, except the blue silk window-hangings. Madame de Mellissie had the room next to it, and I could hear her talking in it with her mother. Hill surveyed matters, and gave a sort of grunt. "Ugh! I thought the maids had uncovered this room yesterday: as I've just told my lady. They must have hurried over their cleaning pretty quick. Please to step this way, Miss. If you'll wait here a few minutes, I'll have things arranged." She went back along the gallery, opened the door of the first bedroom on this side the staircase, and showed me in. It was a very pretty room, not large; its hangings and curtains of delicate chintz, lined with pale rose-colour, and its furniture _not_ covered up, but as evidently not in occupation. I wondered why they could not put me in that. The window was wide open. I untied my bonnet and stood there, Hill closing the door and going downstairs, no doubt to call up the housemaids. With the exception of the gravel drive below, and the green lawn in front of it, its velvet softness dotted with the brightest flowers, the place seemed to look upon nothing but trees, intersected with gloomy walks. Trees of all sorts—low as dwarf shrubs, high as towering poplars, dark green, light green, bright green. The walks branched everywhere—one in particular, just opposite my window, looked very gloomy, shaded as it was by dark pine-trees. I found afterwards that it was called the Pine Walk. Why the place should have struck upon me with a gloom, I can hardly tell; other people might have seen nothing to justify the impression. "Chandos has need to live in a world of its own," I thought, "for assuredly it is shut in from all view of the outer world." There arose a sound as of some one softly whistling. It came from the adjacent window, one in the gallery, which must have been open the same as mine. I did not like to lean forward and look. Another moment, and the whistling ceased; some one else appeared to have come up, and voices in conversation supervened. They were those of Lady Chandos and her son, and I became an involuntary hearer of what troubled me much. "This is one of Emily's wild actions," said Lady Chandos. "She knows quite enough of our unhappy secrets to be sure that a stranger is not wanted at Chandos."