Chapter X

“Mr. Delaney, I cannot understand you,” she said. “You talk strangely. I am tempted to believe that you cannot be sane, that you are not in your right mind.”

He looked at her steadily with his grave, dark eyes.

“Do I look like a lunatic, Miss Rodney?” he inquired.

“No, but you talk like one,” she cried out, petulantly. “Do you really imagine that you can keep my presence here a secret from my own people? Do you not know that they will search for me until they find me?”

“They are already searching for you, but I am quite sure they will never find you,” he replied. “The last place where Mr. Rodney would think of looking for you would be here in his neighbor’s house.”

She knew that it was true. Her heart sunk heavily, but she cried out, spiritedly:

“But when I go home and tell him--what then? Are you not afraid of his anger when he knows the truth?”

“He will never know,” Oran Delaney replied, strangely.

The pale face on the snowy, lace-fringed pillow grew paler still, the blue eyes darkened with agitation.

“Not know?” she cried out, passionately. “Why, what can you mean?”

“You will not tell him,” he replied.

“Now I am quite, quite sure that you are mad,” said Aline. “Do you think I shall not tell them all when I go home?”

“I am quite sure you will not!”

Aline could not speak for a moment. She was mystified by Mr. Delaney’s words and manner. She almost began to believe him mad indeed. To what did his strange talk tend?

While she puzzled within herself he drew his chair nearer to the bedside--near enough indeed to touch her pulse with his cool fingers.

“Pray do not excite yourself unduly,” he said. “There is really no necessity for it. Cannot we discuss this matter coolly and dispassionately, and come to an understanding?”

She drew her hand away with a heavy sigh.

“I do not believe I can discuss it coolly,” she said. “I am frightened at the mysteries of this house, and the mysteries with which you choose to surround me. I am here within a stone’s throw of my own home, wounded, helpless, a prey to grief and anxiety, while my friends are seeking me everywhere in sorrow and distress. I cannot be calm and cool. I am perfectly wretched. How can you explain away these things?”

“Will you listen to me while I try to do so?” asked Oran Delaney.

“Yes,” she answered, impatiently.

“It will not take long,” he said. “In the first place, Miss Rodney, I take some blame upon myself for this. I should not have brought you into my house--I should not even have admitted you into my garden. But I thought you a lonely child, and was carelessly willing to gratify your penchant for my beautiful flowers.”

“Those dearly bought flowers!” sighed Aline.

“Through your own thoughtlessness and mine,” he continued, “you have stumbled upon the mystery of Delaney House--a mystery too terrible to be given to the world--a secret I will guard with my very life, if need be. Therefore--” He paused, after his odd fashion, and gazed gravely into her face.

“Therefore,” she repeated, wonderingly.

“The Delaneys have been a proud race from the beginning--I am the proudest one yet,” he said. “That which you know of Delaney House, Miss Rodney, you shall never be permitted to carry across its portals to blazon to a curious, mocking world!”

“Do you mean to kill me?” shuddered the girl, shrinking in terror from the dark, stern, agitated face.

He started and looked at her.

“Poor child! Have I indeed frightened you so much?” he asked. “I must indeed be an ogre in your eyes! No, Aline--you are such a child, let me call you so--no; I do not mean to kill you. I am not a murderer. I shall simply bind you by an oath of silence when you leave this place.”

“An oath of silence?” she repeated, vaguely.

“Yes,” he answered, steadily. “I shall swear you to silence regarding your whereabouts during the time you have been away--silence regarding the wound you have received--silence regarding me--silence, in short, as to everything that can throw the least light on your strange disappearance from your home.”

“And if I refuse to swear?” Aline exclaimed, gazing at him almost defiantly.

“If you refuse, you will never be permitted to leave Delaney House,” he answered, firmly.

“Never?” she echoed.

“Never!” he reiterated.