But I refused to tell her. It was better that her mind should be occupied with guessing. III As I have said, I took that house in the Vale of Health. It wanted only three weeks of the June Quarter, so that I had to take it or leave it without overmuch delay. Evie and I went up to see it on the following day, and a scramble indeed we had to force our way through the Bank Holiday crowds. It took me nearly half-an-hour to get the key at the neighbouring tea-garden, where I had been told I must apply; on that day, they said, they couldn't be bothered; but I got it, and at the mere sight of the outside of the little house Evie gave a soft "Oh!" of pleasure. "_What_ a little darling!" she said. "Look--a separate tradesmen's entrance--and a little garden--and the Heath at our very door! I wonder what it's like inside!" she added, much as she still scans the handwriting and postmark of a letter for a minute for information she could have at once by opening it. "I don't know yet," I replied. "You dear, not to have seen it before me!" I put the key into the glass-panelled door, and we entered. Later I came to hate that little house; but that day, with Evie's spirits still a little tremulous, I did not dwell on drawbacks. It had only four rooms, two on each floor, and we walked straight from the street into the room that later became our dining-room. Behind this lay the kitchen, completing our ground-plan. Facing the door by which we had entered, and with a triangular cupboard underneath it, rose a carved and worn wooden staircase, that turned on itself after three or four steps and gave access to the floor above. Here the drawing-room exactly repeated the dining-room, as did the single bedroom the kitchen. But the drawing-room, besides having an extra window over the street door, had also the feature I had seen from the hillock on the previous day--the platform or verandah built out on wooden posts over the garden. This was gained by two steps and a glass door at the end of the room, and it provided me with my first disappointment. For, when I stepped out on to it, I found that we had _no_ garden. The garden belonged to the adjoining house, the tenant of which had, moreover, secured his privacy by building in our little platform with a screen of boards and trellis. There would be just room enough on our little quarter-deck for a tea-table and a couple of chairs; but of prospect, save for the side of the hillock, had we none. For the rest, ceilings sagged, the worn old floor creaked and did not seem over-safe, the panelling (the whole place was wood-lined) was badly cracked, and the late tenants had turned the bath into a dustbin and general receptacle for rubbish.