The passages in the house formed a cross, dividing it into four equal parts. Before him, all was vacant; and he could see clear through, by a door at the back, into a little orchard behind; but he heard a woman's voice speaking on the left, and now he was sure that she was answered in the tones of Iola. Walking on then, he turned up the passage on that side, and saw the woman servant coming forth from the door of a room. She closed the door suddenly behind her, when she beheld a man in the passage, and demanded sharply what he wanted. "I wish to speak with the lady in that room," replied Chartley. "When she knows who it is, she will see me, I am sure." "Nonsense, nonsense, young man," replied the woman. "There is no lady there. That is a store room." "Then your stores speak, my good woman," answered Chartley; "for I heard a voice which I know right well talking to you." "Go away, go away," replied the woman, who, in the dark passage where Chartley stood, could not see his dress, or judge of his station. "Go away, or I will call in the men to make you." "All the men in the neighbourhood would not make me," answered Chartley aloud. "At least, not till I see that lady. Tell her it is Lord Chartley. If she bids me go, I will." The words had scarcely passed his lips, when the door through which the woman had just passed was thrown open, light suddenly streamed into the passage, and Iola herself ran out, exclaiming: "Chartley, is that you? Nay, nay, you are rash indeed. You should not have come." "But, now I have come, you will not bid me go," said Chartley, taking her hand, and kissing it. He put some restraint upon himself to keep his lips from hers. "I cannot bid you go at once," answered Iola, bending her eyes down, with the colour rising in her cheek; "but you must go soon, and not return again, unless I send." "This is hard," answered Chartley; "but still, I shall not feel it so much now I know where you are, and can hover round the neighbourhood, like a dove over its nest, watching the treasure of its love." "Nay, Chartley, you are no dove," answered Iola, with a smile. "Open that other door, Catherine, and watch well from the windows that no one approaches. Come in hither, Chartley," she continued, as the woman opened the door of a room opposite to that from which she had come. "Here is my little hall. No grand reception room, yet sweet and pleasant." A floor of dried and hard beaten clay, a low roof with all the rafters shown, walls covered with mere whitewash, an unpolished oaken table, and seats of wood, did not make the room seem less bright and sweet to Chartley when Iola was there. She herself was dressed as a mere cottage girl, and doubtless, when the mantle and hood, then worn in the middle and lower ranks of life, were added, an unobserving eye might hardly have recognized her; but she did not look less lovely to the eyes of him who sat beside her.