CHAPTER IV.

QIGG.

During the following two weeks, up to New Year’s day, the three friends made little progress in their observations.  The tall girl in the immense skirts appeared rarely to reward Matthew Maltboy’s ardent gaze, and even then seemed to look down at the dingy snow beneath, or the clouds overhead, or to something or somebody across the way, but never to the fluttering Maltboy.

Nothing more was seen of the pale and grayhaired workman; for he kept the lower curtain of his window jealously drawn.  But at night his shadow, strongly projected on the curtain, was in incessant motion; and far into the morning hours a gigantic head and arms shifted and blended upon it in grotesque forms.  At the other window of the workman’s apartment the young girl often sat, book in hand, and moved her lips as if she were reading aloud.  Her eyes were never seen to wander to the outer world with those longings for freedom and fresh air which are natural to the youthful heart, but were always fixed upon the book, or upon some object within the room.  She was entirely unconscious of the distant and imperfect scrutiny to which her form and movements were subjected by Marcus Wilkeson, who had begun to take a strange interest in her, and in the shadow on the curtain, since the healthy and amiable old gentleman directly opposite had ceased to smoke his pipe and indulge in his tranquil meditation daily.

Twice only had he shown himself, and then, after a grave bow to Marcus Wilkeson, who returned it with more than the usual inclination of head, the old gentleman had taken a few whiffs at his pipe, looked out of the window with a troubled air, and vanished from the sight of his sympathizing observer, as if the quiet old sitting place had lost its charm for him.  The young man—­the disturbing element of the old gentleman’s life, as Marcus Wilkeson regarded him—­was not again seen in the room where he had made his first appearance, but was discovered, several days after that event, sitting at a table near a window in the second story, and writing industriously.  His labors were evidently not disagreeable; for, after an hour’s engagement with his pen, he would sit back in his chair, laugh, take a long drink from a black bottle which stood at his elbow, and light a fresh cigar.  Whatever his occupation, he was completely absorbed in it, and did not notice the pair of keen eyes peering at him from behind a book in the house opposite.  Every afternoon, about three o’clock, the young man sat at the table with his bottle, cigars, and writing materials, and pursued his pleasant labors.

Marcus Wilkeson would never have pretended that it was not highly improper to watch one’s neighbors.  He would have denounced it as deserving of the severest reprobation.  But he would have said, that if, while he was sitting, according to his invariable custom, at his own window, for the sole purpose of reading a book, people chose to bring themselves within the range of his vision, he was not therefore under obligations to vacate his seat.  He would have insisted that any glances which he might have directed at his neighbors, were so levelled in fits of mental abstraction, or in the exercise of a friendly regard for them.  The Overtop theory he discarded as fallacious, and likely to get its talented founder into trouble.