Chapter L

It was exactly what Oran Delaney was prepared to hear. Nay, he would have been disappointed if the proud, noble looking man before him had not made that passionate, determined assertion. He said to himself that, if he had been the father of Aline Rodney, he would have killed any man who had thus shadowed her life. He knew that he had a true man and a devoted father to deal with, and the groan that struggled up from his breast was not one of fear, but rather of grief that he could not make the reparation demanded.

“Let me ask you one question, Mr. Rodney,” he said. “Who has betrayed Aline’s secret to you?”

Mr. Rodney looked at him steadily, as he answered:

“I have no objection to telling you, sir. It was a New York detective, who has been upon Aline’s track ever since her first disappearance from her home.”

“How has he discovered it?” Mr. Delaney exclaimed, while a terrible pallor overspread his face. He knew what those keen New York detectives were. Was all his humiliating secret, indeed, revealed to the carping world?

“I cannot tell you that,” Mr. Rodney answered. “It is the man’s own secret. Suffice it to say that I am now fully aware that Aline spent the three months of her strange absence under this roof. You will not deny that fact?”

“Would to God that I could!” groaned Oran Delaney, involuntarily.

“Ah! you are frightened at the consequences of what you have done!” sneered the outraged father.

It he had expected to arouse a tempest of wrath in the other by his contemptuous sneer, he was mistaken. Mr. Delaney looked at him gravely, even sadly, but he made no answer to the angry words, His heart and mind were in a tumult. He could not think clearly. Aline’s beautiful, anguished face kept rising between him and her father. It haunted him, he could not banish it from his thoughts.

“Because I have grieved her so, I will speak no angry words to her father,” he said to himself.

He turned to the angry man and said, with grave dignity:

“I am quite willing to offer you all the reparation in my power, Mr. Rodney, for the injury I have done you and your daughter.”

“I think you know that there are but two ways of settling our difficulty,” Mr. Rodney said, gazing sternly into the troubled eyes of his neighbor.

“You mean--”

“The first way would be to marry my daughter and give her the shelter of your name,” said Mr. Rodney.

“And the second?” queried his neighbor.

“Satisfaction at the sword’s point” the other answered, sharply.

“A duel?” Mr. Delaney exclaimed.

“Yes.”

Then for a brief space they were silent, and gazed gravely at each other. The visitor was the first to break the deep, strange silence that reigned in the room.

“You have your choice, sir. Which shall it be--a death or a bridal?”

“Most unfortunately, I can have no choice in the matter,” Oran Delaney answered, in calm, repressed tones that showed no trace of fear or dread. “It must be the duel.”

“You refuse to marry Aline--you prefer death rather than be the husband of my beautiful child!” Mr. Rodney exclaimed, in mingled anger and wonder.

“I have already told you that I have no choice,” the other answered.

“Of course you will allow me to doubt that assertion?” sneeringly.

“I will allow _you_ to do so for your daughter’s sake: but it would not be safe for any other man to say so much before my face.”

They gazed fixedly at each other. Mr. Rodney’s lips were just starting to speak, when the contemplated words were frozen on his lips by a terrible interruption. That terrible voice, which any one who had ever heard it never forgot, rang suddenly and startlingly through the house, waking all the sleeping echoes into awful life. Mr. Rodney’s blood tingled in his veins, every individual hair on his head seemed to stand erect with horror. He sprung forward and caught Mr. Delaney by the arm.

“What is it?” he cried, hoarsely.

His host did not answer for a moment. He stood still, listening to those ringing cries with a look like despair on his face.

“What is it?” Mr. Rodney repeated.

Then Mr. Delaney turned his tortured eyes on the other’s face.

“It is the ghost of Delaney House,” he said, in a changed and hollow voice.

“The ghost!” Mr. Rodney cried.

“Yes,” Mr. Delaney answered, and then both were silent, while those shrill cries filled their ears with a horrible din.

A pause, and then Mr. Delaney said, abruptly:

“Do not think me inhospitable, but you had better go. Delaney House is no place for you or any one. It is haunted. It is the abode of unhappy spirits. Go now, and send some one to me in the morning on the business you propose.”

Mr. Rodney obeyed mechanically. He was so surprised and confused by the sudden, dreadful sounds that still assailed his ears that he seemed to have no volition of his own. He moved toward the door that Mr. Delaney held open, and passed quickly through it, followed by his host.

“Are you sure that Aline is not here?” he asked, as they passed through the hall, his mind suddenly recurring to the fact of her absence an hour ago which had been discovered by her mother and reported to him in a frenzy of alarm.

“I give you my word of honor that she left me only a minute before you entered. You must have met her only for the darkness of the night. I am quite sure you will find her at home when you return,” Oran Delaney answered, confidently.

“I shall send a friend to you in the morning to make arrangements,” Mr. Rodney said, presently.

“Very well. I shall make my will to-night,” Mr. Delaney answered, with grim pleasantry.

Then he opened the heavy door and ushered his visitor out into the snowy night, in whose gloom and darkness Aline had disappeared a little while ago.