He stood silently gazing at the windows where the light had so
strangely flickered and disappeared with almost the swiftness of a
flash of lightning. He was full of wonder over what he had heard and
seen.
“What a horrible voice!” he said to himself. “It was neither that of a
man nor woman, and yet it sounded distinctly human. What was it? I have
heard such shrieks within the walls of madhouses, nowhere else. Can it
be that some unfortunate lunatic is confined in Delaney House?”
He stood still, listening and watching some time, but he neither saw
nor heard anything more. The mansion had returned to its usual gloom
and silence. It almost seemed to him as if those fearful shrieks and
that swift flash of light had been the figment of his own disordered
imagination.
He went up to the front gate, which, like the fence, was of tall ornate
ironwork, surmounted by bristling spear-heads, and softly tried the
latch. It was unlocked and yielded readily to his touch. He entered the
lovely neglected grounds and strolled through the quiet paths, careful
to keep in the shadow and well out of the patches of wintery moonlight
that gleamed on some of the white, graveled walks. He did not himself
understand the strange caprice that had driven him to enter the private
grounds of one who was wholly a stranger to him, but it led him blindly
on.
“If the owner should catch me trespassing on his grounds I might find
myself rather _de trop_,” he thought, grimly, but he did not turn back.
He did not think it likely that the master of Delaney House would
wander in that dreary, deserted garden on such a night.
Leaving the vicinity of the house, he strolled slowly on and came out
at that end of the garden which was simply walled by the gable end of
Mr. Rodney’s cottage. Still in the shadow himself he saw a sudden light
thrown on the ground by the reflection of the light from a window. He
glanced up quickly and saw that it shone from the casement of Aline
Rodney’s room.
He drew back further into the convenient shadow cast by a tall, dark
evergreen-tree, and looked up. He saw that the curtain at the window
had been drawn aside by a small white hand. The next moment he saw a
fair young face gazing out wistfully through the pane into the moonlit
night whose mystic shadows lay long and dark around Delaney House.
It was Aline Rodney’s face. He gazed upon it, eagerly, as it stared out
with parted lips and wide, despairing eyes at the dark, gloomy house.
“What is she doing there? What interest can she have in Delaney House?”
Mr. Lane asked himself, soberly.
The beautiful grave young face gave no answer to his question. There
was upon it an expression of wistful sadness and pathetic sorrow that
went to his heart, strong man though he was. She remained for some time
gazing sadly out into the wintery darkness, then slowly retired and
dropped the heavy curtain between herself and the dreary scene.
Mr. Lane retraced his steps back through the shrubbery toward the house
again. He went around to the front entrance and looked curiously at the
great carved oaken door.
He was struck by a coincidence with Dr. Anthony’s story.
The front door was reached by a flight of wide, marble steps.
“Strange!” he muttered to himself. “What if this should prove to be the
house!”
He gazed longingly at the dark stone walls. He would have given
anything could his gaze have pierced through them in quest of the
hidden blue room of Dr. Anthony’s story. A dozen vague suspicions were
floating formlessly through his mind, but each thought hovered like a
dark-winged bird of omen around Delaney House.
“Can it be that the secret is hidden here?” he asked himself. “Have we
all been searching far and wide for Aline Rodney while she lay wounded
and hidden at her father’s very door?”
The suspicion took hold upon his mind with startling pertinacity. It
grew into a settled belief even while he stood there gazing fixedly at
the close shut, forbidding looking door.
“Well, if it be so or not, I shall find it out before I leave Chester
again,” he said to himself, with a certain resolution in his tone, as
he let himself out of the gate into the street again.
He went back to the cottage and met Dr. Anthony coming out to look for
him.
“I thought you had run away, Lane. Where have you been?” asked the
doctor.
“I came out to smoke a cigar. You know my old bachelor habits,” Mr.
Lane answered indifferently.
“You must be half frozen. It is a very cold night. Come in and warm
your fingers before we go,” said his friend.
They went in, and though they rallied Mr. Lane on his long absence in
the cold night air, he did not say one word on what he had seen and
heard. The time had not come yet.