They passed through two dirty kitchens, through a wash-house littered with damp linen and filled with steam from a copper in the corner, and emerged upon a well-court foetid with sink-water and decaying scraps of vegetables.

They had met no one on their way, and it crossed Tilda's mind--but the thought was incredible--that Sarah Huggins served this vast barracks single-handed.

A flight of stone steps led up from this area to the railed coping twenty feet aloft, where the sky shone pure and fresh.
"Up there, an' you 're in the garden." Tilda ran, so fast that at the head of the steps she had to clutch at the railing and draw breath.
The garden, too, was deserted.

A gravelled path, scarcely four feet wide, ran straight to the end of it, and along this she hurried, not daring to look back, but aware that all the back windows were following her--watching and following her--with horrible curtainless eyes.
The garden, planted for utility, was passably well kept.

It contained, in all its parcelled length, not a single flower.