ch followed his romantic
flight from the Tower. To his impatient mind the days were irksome
weeks. The cold monastery was worse than a prison. He looked from its
windows as a convict looks through his bars, always hoping, always
disappointed. With each of the infrequent visits of Captain Quinnox, his
heart leaped at the prospect of liberty, only to sink deeper in despair
upon the receipt of emphatic, though kindly, assurances that the time
had not yet come for him to leave the haven of safety into which he had
been thrust by loving hands. From his little window he could see the
active city below, with the adored castle; to his nostrils came the
breath of summer from the coveted valley, filling him with almost
insupportable longing and desire. Cold were the winds that swept about
his lofty home; ghastly, gruesome the nights, pallid and desolate the
days. Out of the world was he, dreary and heartsick, while at his feet
stretched life and joy and love in their rarest habiliments. How he
endured the suspense, the torture of uncertainty, the craving for the
life that others were enjoying, he could not understand. Big, strong and
full of vigor, his inactivity was maddening; this virtual captivity grew
more and more intolerable with each succeeding day. Would they never
take him from the tomb in which he was existing? A hundred times had
he, in his desperation, concluded to flee from the monastery, come
what might, and to trust himself to the joyous world below, but the
ever-present though waning spark of wisdom won out against the fierce,
aggressive folly that mutinied within his hungry soul. He knew that she
was guarding him with loving, tender care, and that, when the proper
time came, the shackles of danger would drop and his way would be
cleared.

Still there was the longing, the craving, the loneliness. Day after day,
night after night went by and the end seemed no nearer. Awake or asleep,
he dreamed of her, his heart and mind always full of that one rich
blessing,--her love. At times he was mad with the desire to know what
she was doing, what she was thinking and what was being done for her
down there in that busy world. Lying on his pallet, sitting in the
narrow window, pacing the halls or wandering about the cold courtyards,
he thought always of her, hoping and despairing with equal fervor. The
one great question that made his imprisonment, his inactivity so irksome
was: Was he to possess the treasure he longed so muc