She made the gardener's former workshop her domain. One morning when he had watched her go down to the river, he went in to look at it. He found a low, sloping room, with a roof composed of old greenhouse frames. The green, dusty, lead-bordered panes were much cracked, and in places let in the winds and rains of heaven. The ground was neither floored nor paved, but covered with a dark moist garden soil resembling peat. Attached to the walls were rude wooden shelves, once used by the gardener for his flower-pots. They now held all the house's scanty stock of crockery. Pots, plates, and dishes were arranged on them in perfect order, and had been polished till they shone. A blackened door off its hinges, evidently rescued from the fire, supported by two wooden boxes about two feet from the ground, was spread with straw and a haircloth, of the kind that are thrown over the backs of horses to protect them from cold. This was her bed--"Many a dog has a better," he thought. The brick fireplace was in the opposite corner; a home-made contrivance of beams was meant to guide the belching smoke from the hearth into its proper channel, but only partially succeeded. In this smoky hole, with its cold damp floor, she was domiciled, and desired nothing better. Here her heart was centred as in a dearly cherished Paradise. Poor, wretched woman! and to be driven forth from it meant to her death and perdition. And then one evening she disappeared. He had at last made up his mind to speak to her about the provisions, and went to call her. No answer came. The kitchen was empty. He sought her in the park, among the ruins, on the bridge, all over the island, but there was no sign of her. Her name rang clearly out through the night air as he called her, and had she been anywhere about she must have heard it. He became suspicious. Probably after the hard work of her lonely days, she took it out at night in the arms of a swain. She was, of course, well versed in the arts of vice, and would not scruple to yield herself to the embraces of some rustic gallant. Many of her persecutors below may have desired the body they stoned. How otherwise could her obstinate adherence to her present miserable mode of living, after his father's death, be explained, except by the existence of a new sin--a sin which, perhaps, had long been carried on hand-in-hand with the old. He was filled with loathing and disgust at the thought. "If she can't behave herself, I'll pack her off early to-morrow morning;" and with this resolution he retired to rest. But he could not sleep for thinking of what the future would be without her. To send her away would involve going himself the same day.