"Mercy's sake, girl, go to bed, and put the light out. I declare I cannot sleep a wink with the gas shining in my eyes!"

"You have been _snoring_ uninterruptedly for several hours!" answered Queenie, coldly. "How do you suppose I can sleep when you keep up such a noise with your breathing?"

"Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowers. "This is the first time I was ever accused of snoring!"

Queenie did not speak for a moment. Presently she turned her head around and said, abruptly:

"Mrs. Bowers!"

Mrs. Bowers, who was falling asleep again, gave a grunt in token that she heard.

"What has become of that pretty girl you brought home from Farmer Thorn's?"

"She went away two days ago," was the sleepy reply.

"With Leon Vinton, I presume," said Queenie, scornfully.

"No, she went alone."

"Betrayed and abandoned, no doubt," said Queenie, bitterly.

"Something like that, certainly," answered the housekeeper, carelessly, and with that she turned over and went to sleep again, leaving Queenie to her own reflections.

They were not pleasant ones, certainly. The room was chilly, and she took up a shawl, wrapped it about her shoulders, and went back to her lonely vigil, pressing her forehead against the pane while she looked out into the cold winter night.

"Oh, to be out there in the night, and the cold, and the darkness," she murmured. "Oh, to feel the breath of freedom on my brow once more, and hope within my heart!

"How lonely, how dreary everything seems," she went on. "How dark and dreary the river looks except where the bars of moonlight touch it with brightness; how ghostly and skeleton-like the trees appear, tossing their naked arms in the breeze; how weird and melancholy the silent, deserted earth looks at midnight!"

Suddenly she started and uttered a low cry.

She fancied that she had seen a dark form darting cautiously about the garden beneath the windows.

She looked out again, and for a moment she thought herself mistaken, but directly the dark form of a man appeared from behind a tree, and skirting a strip of moonlight with cautious footsteps, disappeared in the shadows.

"What can that man be after?" she thought. "It is not Leon Vinton. Whom, then, can it be? Perhaps a burglar."

She continued to watch for him, and presently she saw him take up his station under a tree near the gate as if watching or waiting for someone.

"It must be a burglar," she said to herself. "He is waiting for his accomplice to come that they may rob the house. Shall I wake Mrs. Bowers and tell her?"

She mused a moment, still watching the dark, mysterious form lurking under the shadow of the trees near the gate.

"No, I will not tell her," she concluded. "What does it matter to me? I care not what they do. Perhaps they may enter this room, and by some means I may effect my escape."

Her heart began to beat at the thought, and the light of hope came into her beautiful eyes, brightening her whole face.

She continued to watch the mysterious figure, expecting every minute to see his accomplice appear on the scene; but the hours pa.s.sed slowly by and the man still remained at his post alone.

At the first peep of dawn he went away, leaving Queenie perplexed and doubtful.

"Who can it be?" she asked herself. "It seems quite evident that he is not here for the purpose of robbery. What, then, is he after? Can it be some friend of mine?"

The thought overpowered her with joy.

"Oh, why did I not raise the window and give him some signal?" she thought.

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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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.

"When is he coming back?"

"To-morrow, I suppose. He has been gone a week and he said that he would return in that time. Do you want to see him?"

"No, indeed--I hope I shall never see him again!" said Queenie, shortly, turning back to the window.

The next day while she was watching the mysterious man as he paced up and down the snowy road opposite the house, she saw Leon Vinton ride up to the gate, dismount and tie up his horse.

Involuntarily she looked over at the mysterious stranger. He was rapidly crossing the road toward Leon Vinton.

A gust of wind blew off his broad, slouch hat, and a startled cry broke from Queenie's lips.

She had instantly recognized the man!

It was Farmer Thorn!

She instantly comprehended the object of his daily and nightly espionage.

He was watching for Leon Vinton that he might avenge the wrongs of his daughter.

Clasping her hands in breathless agitation, Queenie waited for the _denouement_.