The days moved with leaden feet for Penelope Noelson. She had come to know every inch of space in the walled garden, and although she gazed wistfully through the iron bars of the gate again and again, no one ever came in sight. Always she felt that certain, if unobtrusive, surveillance over her every movement. The care with which she was watched was brought home to her when she took to dropping notes over the wall in the hope that they would be picked up by some stray wayfarer. Within half an hour they had been returned to her by Sophie Lengholm, with a veiled hint that she might be kept locked in her room if she persisted in trying to communicate with the outside world.
At night the great Alsatian wolfhound, of which she had caught a glimpse on the day of her arrival, patrolled the grounds. Not that that made any difference, for she knew that a key was turned in her lock every evening, although she did not know that Sophie Lengholm for reasons of her own, held the key.