Then she remembered that the windows had been tightly fastened down by Leon Vinton's orders, so that she could not raise them.
"I have suffered my hopes to lead my reason astray," she thought then, with sudden despair. "Of course it is not anyone to help me. No one knows that I am living except Leon Vinton and the wicked woman sleeping yonder. Papa, Lawrence—all of them, think my body lies at this moment moldering in the grave. Oh, Lawrence—oh, papa! what would I not give to see you again!"
She little dreamed that the father she loved so fondly had died of a broken heart over her loss.
She thought of him every day and longed to see him almost as she longed to see the husband from whose side she had been torn at the very altar by the vindictive malice of Leon Vinton.
The next day from her position at the window she saw the same dark figure of a man pass up and down before the cottage at intervals at least a dozen times. A broad, slouch hat was pulled over his brows, effectually concealing his features from Queenie's sight.
"The mystery deepens," she thought, "the man, whoever he is, evidently is watching this house. But with what object, I wonder?"
At night he appeared again, and passed the long, cold hours pacing up and down the garden until dawn.
Every day for four days the man kept up this restless espionage. It seemed to Queenie that he neither ate nor slept, so constantly did he appear at his post. She became greatly interested in the mysterious watcher.
"Mrs. Bowers," she said one night, "where is Leon Vinton?"
"In town, I suppose," said the housekeeper.