Chapter LVI

“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.