The next few days proved how little he was in a position to live on his own estate without her services. He was far more dependent on her than she on him. Helpless as a shipwrecked mariner on a desert island, he stole about the ancestral grounds. Though the mines and wolfs'-traps no longer dogged his steps, finding his way among the chaos of smoked and tumbling walls made him giddy, and decay had altered everything so much, that the landmarks of his childish memories afforded him no assistance. Even the park, where once he had known every tree and bush, through long years of neglect, had become such a wilderness that at every step he nearly lost himself in it. When the first flush of his defiance and despair had subsided, the question arose, "What was he to do next?" It was a problem that pressed for solution, as the miserable rations of bread and meat in the cellars were running out. His pride prevented his seeking advice from Regina; he had not spoken to her again. Apparently she understood the wisdom of making herself scarce. But when he returned of a morning from the river, where he went for a bath, he found the red-flowered counterpane of the canopied bed neatly arranged, the floor swept, and strewn with sand and fragrant fir spikes, and saw awaiting him on the gold-legged table (the fourth leg of which was propped up with a brick) a steaming brown coffee-pot, and dainty slices of black bread lying beside it. His shyness at taking food from her hands had soon to be got over. At first he had still hesitated a little to break bread that she had brought him, but it looked so appetising, and bathing in the cold autumn mornings sharpened his hunger, that at last his scruples had gone to the wall. At midday, a soup made of bread, and slices of roast meat, stood ready for him, not to mention a bottle of good wine; and in the evening, by some clever stratagem, another meal of a different character was contrived out of the same unpromising materials. Thus she knew how to keep house with nothing but the scanty larder he had found in the cellar at her disposal. He often saw her whisk past the window with pots and kettles, on her way to wash them in the river. When she came back she would cautiously peer with her lustrous eyes through the shrubs, to ascertain whether the coast was clear. If he happened to be at the door, or looking out of the window, she would immediately disappear in the wood.