“Monsieur Sanson must have been a villain,” exclaimed Mr. Rodney,
vehemently.
“He saved my life once, and now he is dead. I scarcely feel at liberty
to express my real opinion of the man,” said Mr. Delaney.
“All obligations were canceled by the wrong he did you,” said Mr.
Rodney.
“Perhaps so. He saved my life, but then he certainly made it valueless
to me,” said the wounded man, musingly.
After a moment, he continued:
“After a short time and without any further solicitation on my part,
he consented to allow me to consider the beautiful Julie my _fiancée_,
but only on condition that we never met until the bridal day. Although
I was most eager to meet my fair intended bride, I was forced to
acquiesce in his decision. Indeed, I did not greatly care to change
it. I was carried away by the romantic idea of never meeting my bride
until the hour that gave her to my eager arms. Its very difference to
the customs of my own country had its peculiar charm for me. Monsieur
Sanson wrote to his daughter, and she consented to the marriage in a
_naive_ pretty letter that transported me with rapture. It was arranged
that the fair one would leave her convent school to become my bride in
about six months. Do I weary you with all this preliminary explanation,
Mr. Rodney?” inquired the invalid, pausing suddenly.
“On the contrary, I am deeply interested in your story,” replied the
lawyer.
“I will hasten to the end, then,” said Oran Delaney. “We continued our
travels for awhile, when about two months before the time set for my
marriage, Monsieur left me, to return to his villa at Nice, ostensibly
to make preparations for the marriage. He was to write to me when to
come, but in little more than a week I was telegraphed to go to his
death-bed. He had accidentally shot himself.”
He was growing excited now. The feeble breath came from his lips in
great palpitating gasps.
“You are over-tasking yourself,” Mr. Rodney reminded him again.
“No, I shall soon have done now,” Mr. Delaney answered. “Well, I went
with all haste to Nice, and I arrived there late one night, and found
Monsieur Sanson dying, indeed. They told me that he had been handling
a revolver when it exploded in his hand, fatally wounding him. He lay
at the point of death, and his one anxiety was his fair young daughter
whom he was leaving alone in the world. Would I have any objection to
fulfilling my marriage contract now, he asked me, that he might die
satisfied?
“I told him I would marry Julie at once, and his mind was at once
relieved of its load of care. Preparations were made for a midnight
marriage. A priest was summoned. Everything was arranged with perfect
legality.”
He paused and swept his aristocratic white hand wearily across his brow.
“How it all comes back to me,” he said. “It was a beautiful summer
night. A wind from the sea came into the room through the open windows,
mingled with the breath of tropic flowers. A dim light burned in the
room where the dying man lay breathing heavily. They brought my bride
in to me. I could not make out either her face or her form for the
great billows of snowy lace in which she was enveloped from head to
foot, but I fancied that all womanly loveliness was centered in her
form. Well, they made her my bride, and then led her quickly from the
room, for Monsieur Sanson’s death-hour was near at hand. He thanked me
feebly for what I had done, and then he bound me by a solemn oath to
protect and cherish his Julie as long as she lived, never leaving nor
forsaking her.
“‘I have already promised the priest all that,’ I said, in wonder.
That was no matter, he said, and persisted in his request that I would
solemnly swear to do what he asked. An oath made to a dying man would
be more sacred, he said.
“Though I thought him unreasonable, I could refuse nothing to a dying
man; so I took the oath he asked of me. I thought it could not greatly
matter anyhow. I had no idea of ever forsaking my fair young foreign
bride. I was too much infatuated with the charming young creature the
fertile imagination of the Frenchman had painted for me.
“He died in a little while after the ceremony and left me to comfort
his bereaved daughter. It was not until after the funeral that she
allowed me to see her. She was prostrated by the shock of her father’s
death, they told me.
“Oh, Mr. Rodney, can you guess what a terrible shock it was to me when
I beheld her at last?
“I had in my mind the vision of an angel. I imagined my bride lovely in
mind as in person, and thought myself most fortunate in the possession
of such a perfect creature.
“When they showed me the creature to whom I had bound myself--the
misshapen, deformed, blighted creature, with a mind as blasted and out
of shape as her body--do you wonder that I almost went mad?”
“Surely the laws of any land would have freed you from such a
creature!” exclaimed Mr. Rodney, indignantly.
“I made no attempt to free myself,” said Oran Delaney. “I was so
shocked at finding myself placed in such a terrible position, so
ashamed of the foolish ease with which I had fallen into the trap set
for me, that I was like one dazed or stunned. It was some little while
before I realized it, and then the weight of my oath to the dying held
me back from taking any steps toward freeing myself from my horrible
incubus.
“Monsieur Sanson had left a letter for me, too. It was a confession.”
“A confession!” repeated Mr. Rodney.
“Yes. It appeared that the story of the accidental shooting was all a
hoax. The man had given himself the death-blow with a suicidal intent.”
Mr. Rodney uttered an exclamation of horror and dismay.
“He had committed suicide, but why?”
“Because he had run through his property and was reduced to beggary.
He had led a fast and gay life and had nothing left to live upon. The
villa and all its furniture were mortgaged beyond their value, and were
to be seized. There would be nothing left for him and the deformed
maniac, his daughter, whom, despite her afflictions, he seemed to
cherish with a strange morbid affection.”
Mr. Rodney could not repress a shudder of disgust. He thought of his
three brilliant, beautiful children with a feeling of pride, and he
wondered that even a father’s heart could have cherished tenderness for
the dreadful, misshapen maniac of Delaney House.
“So he formed that dreadful plan for providing his deformed and maniac
daughter with a husband to take care of her, and then he consummated
it in the way I have told you. When it became impossible to enjoy the
wealth and pleasures of this world any longer, he sent himself out of
it, with a shocking deliberateness, and shifted his burden upon my
shoulders.”
“He was a villain! But you were not compelled to accept the loathsome
legacy he bequeathed to you. The marriage, being with a person of
unsound mind, was really null and void in the eyes of the law,” said
the lawyer.
“I did not resort to the law to help me out of my trouble,” said Oran
Delaney. “I was too proud, for one thing, to let the public know
how shamefully I had been duped. I was bitterly ashamed of my own
credulity; besides, I was weighted down by the solemnity of my oath to
the dying. I could not forsake poor Julie Sanson, even though I had
been so horribly duped and deceived. I had sworn to devote my life to
her; and, in his letter of confession to me, Monsieur Sanson again
committed his daughter solemnly to my care, urging that, as he had once
saved my life, it was but right that I should devote it to the daughter
left so helpless and forlorn by his sinful death.”
“He had much better have let you die, than saved your life to such a
horrible end!” exclaimed Mr. Rodney.
“Much better,” sighed Oran Delaney. “But, as it was, I accepted his
dying charge. I brought Julie Sanson to America, and confided her to
the care of my old nurse, Mrs. Griffin. I have lived at Delaney House
in seclusion for years, shunning my kind, because in my morbid pride,
I had sworn that the carping, censorious world should never know my
dreadful secret. Mrs. Griffin has been most faithful in her trust.
“We lived on quietly there, and poor Julie’s mania developed itself
in two forms. She had a fierce thirst for human blood, and a most
inordinate love for finery, delighting to array her dreadful form in
the richest robes and most brilliant jewels. In the hope of subduing
her bloodthirsty mania, I humored the harmless taste for dress to a
great extent. I constantly made additions to her wardrobe, of the most
gorgeous and dazzling apparel, and I provided her with a jewel-box of
splendid paste imitations of diamonds. She never wearied of decking
herself in these things, and would be quiet and docile for weeks
together in placid enjoyment of them. Again her mania for shedding
blood would seize upon her, and she would fly at me and at Mrs.
Griffin in a fury of rage, with murder flashing from her eyes. On one
occasion she accidentally got out of her room, possessed herself of a
tiny jeweled dagger, and flew through the house like a raging lioness
seeking her prey. On that occasion she wounded me first, and then your
beautiful Aline!”
As if overcome with horror, he groaned aloud and buried his face in the
pillow.
“Much as I would like to hear the remainder of your story, I must
refuse to listen to you longer now, for I can see that you are
completely exhausted,” said the lawyer. “I shall leave you now to
repose. To-morrow, if you are better, you may continue your story.”
“But I am so anxious to clear Aline in your eyes that I am too
impatient to postpone my story,” said Oran Delaney feebly, for it was
quite true that he was exhausted by the efforts he had made.
“Nevertheless, I shall refuse to hear any more to-day,” answered the
lawyer, with a smile. “I am going out now, and I shall send Mrs.
Griffin in to take charge of you.”
He left the room, and the old nurse came in and installed herself by
his pillow. The next morning, after the refreshment of a sound night’s
sleep, he continued his story to Mr. Rodney.