Presently the door was pushed open and Mrs. Bowers entered in such high excitement that she forgot to lock the door behind her.
"Oh!" she cried out, "did you hear the pistol shot? Leon Vinton is dead!"
A sudden impulse decided Queenie to conceal her knowledge of the fact.
She sprang up in apparent wild excitement.
"Is it possible?" she cried. "I heard a pistol-shot a moment ago. Who killed him?"
"I cannot tell you," said Mrs. Bowers. "I heard a shot, and ran to the window just in time to see a man going out of the gate. He had a wide hat on, and I couldn't make out his features."
"You shall never learn his name from me," thought Queenie to herself, for her whole sympathies were with the wronged father of the poor, betrayed Jennie.
"But there laid poor Mr. Vinton, stone dead, in the path," continued Mrs. Bowers, excitedly. "Look out of the window there, and you can see it all for yourself."
Queenie glanced out of the window and drew back with a shudder.
"Oh! it is horrible," she said. "What are you going to do?"