All day she worked, and only once did Herman lose sight of her. That
was when he took a ladder, and outside the house nailed all the
upper windows shut. He did it with German thoroughness, hammering
deliberately, placing his nails carefully. After that he went to the
corner grocery, but before he went he spoke the first words of the day.
"You will go to your room."
She went, and he locked her in. She knew then that she was a prisoner.
When he was at the mill at night, while he slept during the day, she was
to be locked up in her stuffy, airless room. When he was about she would
do the housework, always under his silent, contemptuous gaze.
She made one appeal to him, and only one, and that was to his cupidity.
"I've been sick, but I'm able to work now, father."
He paid no attention to her.
"If you lock me up and don't let me work," she persisted, "you'll only
be cutting off your nose to spite your face. I make good money, and you
know it."
She thought he was going to speak then, but he did not. She put his food
on the table and he ate gluttonously, as he always did. She did not sit
down. She drank a little coffee, standing at the stove, and watched the
back of his head with hate in her eyes. He could eat like that, when he
stood committed to a terrible thing!
It was not until late in the day that it began to dawn on her how she
was responsible. She was getting stronger then and more able to think.
She followed as best she could the events of the last months, and she
saw that, as surely as though a malevolent power had arranged it, the
thing was the result of her infatuation for Graham.
She was in despair, and she began to plan how to get word to Graham of
what was impending. She scrawled a note to Graham, telling him where she
was and to try to get in touch with her somehow. If he would come around
four o'clock Herman was generally up and off to the grocer's, or to
Gus's saloon for his afternoon beer.
"I'll break a window and talk to you," she wrote. "I'm locked in when
he's out. My window is on the north side. Don't lose any time. There's
something terrible going to happen."
But several days went by and the postman did not appear. Herman had put
a padlock on the outside of her bedroom door, and her hope of finding a
second key to fit the door-lock died then.