The town-clock of Chester clanged the midnight hour out heavily from
its hoarse, brazen throat--twelve!
Aline opened her blue eyes languidly--they were heavy, as if weighed
down with lead--and looked about her.
They fell upon a scene utterly new and strange to her.
She was lying on a downy, rosewood couch, with draperies of pale blue
silk and snowy lace, in the center of a large and high-ceiled room
hung with azure silk, the elegant rosewood furniture being upholstered
in the same lovely material. Everything about her breathed of unlimited
wealth and taste, and the sweet aroma of flowers floated delightfully
through the beautiful apartment from the delicate vases on the mantel,
which had been filled with the choicest wealth of the garden by a
lavish and unsparing hand.
“She revives, doctor,” said a woman’s voice.
Aline lifted her eyes quickly. An elderly grave-faced woman had come
forward to the bedside, and was bending curiously over her. She was
dressed in a nurse’s cap and apron, and had a kind, though homely
looking face.
“Who are you, and where am I?” asked Aline, gazing at this strange face
in bewilderment.
“Hush, my dear! You are sick, and must not talk,” answered the nurse
with a slight frown.
She moved aside, and Aline saw two men behind her. A cry of fear broke
from her lips. Both wore masks upon their faces; but, in the tall,
well-knit figure of the foremost one, she recognized Oran Delaney.
He came forward and bent over Aline, whispering, hurriedly:
“Miss Rodney, I beg you, as a special favor, to keep silence a little
while. Say nothing to this stranger of how you came by your wound.”
Her wound! She gave a start and memory rushed over her. She was
conscious too of a sharp, stinging pain in her breast, and the clothing
upon it, she perceived, was stiffened and red with clotted blood. So
that horrible creature had not quite killed her!
She made no answer, for Oran Delaney moved quickly away, giving
place to the masked physician. The nurse brought a basin of water,
sponges, and linen, and he deftly bathed and dressed the wound, gazing
curiously, now and then, at the beautiful, frightened face of his
patient, who lay still as death with only a smothered moan, now and
then, instantly stifled on her pale, almost icy, lips.
“I will be as gentle as I can,” he said to her, kindly, but Aline did
not speak. She had closed her eyes and relapsed into unconsciousness.
When she unclosed them again, the masked physician was gone. She was
alone with the quiet, grave-looking nurse in the dimly lighted room. A
sensation of fear came over her. Why was she kept in this mysterious
house with this strange woman? Where was her mother?
She looked at the stranger, and asked, anxiously.
“Am I in Mr. Delaney’s house?”
The woman gave her a quiet, affirmative nod in reply.
“And mamma--have you sent for her?” inquired Aline.
“You must not talk, my dear,” answered the woman, soothingly.
“You have not answered my question, and I want mamma, I must have
her!” Aline cried out, in her imperious young voice, for she had
forgotten her fear of her mother’s anger in her terror at the mysteries
surrounding her. Oh, to be back under the safe little roof of the
cottage that nestled under the shadow of this frowning mansion, to
fling her arms around her mother’s neck, confessing her folly and
pleading for forgiveness.
“You do not answer me,” she said, after waiting vainly for an answer
from the quiet nurse. “Tell me, why am I detained in this house?”
“You ought to know how you came to be here, miss,” the woman answered,
almost sullenly. “As for the rest, you are seriously wounded, and not
able to be moved.”
“Then you should have sent for my mother,” said Aline, with pretty,
peremptory dignity. “She will be dreadfully frightened at my absence.
Let some one bring her at once.”
“Let us wait until to-morrow, dear,” said the nurse, persuasively.
“I cannot wait,” said the girl, uneasily, and with an unutterable
yearning at her heart for the mother whom she had so often grieved by
her follies and willfulness. “Where is Mr. Delaney? Go, and send him
here. Surely he will let me have mamma.”
The woman glided softly out, and Aline, left alone in the strange room
with its shadowy corners and dimly burning lamp, shuddered with fear.
What if that dreadful, murderous creature should return and finish her
work!
“I shall die here miserably, and never see mamma and home again. Oh,
how terribly I am punished for my thoughtlessness and folly!” wept
Aline, filled with bitter repentance.
The door unclosed, and Oran Delaney walked slowly into the room,
followed by the nurse, who sat down discreetly at a distance from the
bedside of her troublesome patient.
He turned up the dim, flaring night-lamp so that its full light fell
on Aline’s beautiful, pale, distressed face. He had removed the
disfiguring mask that hid his features from the masked physician, and
his dark face looked stern and pallid and troubled.
“You sent for me?” he asked, in his grave, quiet voice.
“I want mamma,” she answered, like a child.
His slender, straight, dark brows met in a slight frown.
“Miss Rodney, you must not excite yourself. I cannot answer for the
consequences if you do,” he said.
“I am not excited, I am quite calm; but I want mamma. Will you not
bring her to me?” she pleaded.
He laid his warm, strong hand gently for a moment on the dimpled little
white ones that lay outside the silken counterpane.
“My child, I am very sorry, but--I cannot,” he answered, slowly.
She tore her small hand violently from his clasp, and looked at him
with the dignity of a suddenly awakened womanhood flashing into her
fair young face.
“Mr. Delaney, surely I have misunderstood you,” she said. “You do not
mean that you will let me lie here suffering, dying, and refuse to
bring my friends to me?”
“Dying? Oh, no, it is not so bad as that,” he said, almost
shudderingly. “You have only a flesh wound, Miss Rodney. With patience
on your part, and good nursing from Mrs. Griffin, here, you will be
quite sure to recover.”
“And in the meantime?” she asked, with a wistful meaning in her voice
that he could not affect to misunderstand.
He turned his head aside, disconcerted, perhaps, by the steady gaze of
the blue eyes.
“In the meantime, Mr. Delaney?” she repeated, in a slightly raised
voice.
He turned toward her again, and answered, abruptly, almost sternly:
“I hope they will not be seriously alarmed about you, Miss Rodney,
for it is quite impossible for me to make any communication to them
regarding your whereabouts.”