Behind the Ozhógins' house lay a fairly spacious garden, terminating in a linden coppice, neglected and overgrown. In the middle of this coppice rose an old arbour in the Chinese style; a board fence separated the garden from a blind-alley. Liza sometimes strolled for hours at a time alone in this garden. Kiríla Matvyéevitch knew this and had given orders that she was not to be disturbed, and kept a watch over her: "Let her grief wear itself out," he said. When she was not to be found in the house, it was only necessary to ring a small bell on the porch at dinner-time, and she immediately presented herself, with the same obdurate taciturnity on her lips and in her gaze, and some sort of crumpled leaf in her hand. So, one day, observing that she was not in the house, I pretended that I was making ready to depart, took leave of Kiríla Matvyéevitch, put on my hat, and emerged from the anteroom into the courtyard, and from the courtyard into the street, but instantly, with extraordinary swiftness, slipped back through the gate and made my way past the kitchen into the garden. Luckily, no one espied me. Without pausing long to think, I entered the grove with hasty steps. Before me, on the path, stood Liza. My heart began to beat violently in my breast. I stopped short, heaved a deep sigh, and was on the point of approaching her, when all of a sudden, without turning round, she raised her hand and began to listen.... From behind the trees, in the direction of the blind-alley, two knocks rang out clearly, as though some one were tapping on the fence. Liza clapped her hands, a faint squeaking of the wicket-gate became audible, and Bizmyónkoff emerged from the coppice. I promptly hid myself behind a tree. Liza turned silently toward him.... Silently he drew her arm through his, and both walked softly along the path. I stared after them in astonishment. They halted, looked about them, disappeared behind the bushes, appeared again, and finally entered the arbour. This arbour was circular in shape, a tiny little building, with one door and one small window; in the centre was to be seen an old table with a single leg, overgrown with fine green moss; two faded little plank divans stood at the sides, at some distance from the damp and dark-hued walls. Here, on unusually hot days, and that once a year, and in former times, they had been in the habit of drinking tea. The door would not shut at all; the frame had long ago fallen out of the window and, catching by one corner, dangled mournfully, like the wounded wing of a bird. I stole up to the arbour and cautiously glanced through a crack of the window. Liza was sitting on one of the little divans, with drooping head; her right hand lay on her lap; Bizmyónkoff was holding the left in both his hands. He was gazing at her with sympathy.