Chapter LXIII

After that one cry of surprise and wonder, Oran Delaney could not utter another word. He stared speechlessly at the fair vision that had arisen, as it were, between him and the flickering firelight.

Until this moment he had had an abiding conviction that Aline Rodney was not dead. His conviction was staggered now. How else had she come there, a silent shadow in his room, save from the world of shadows?

“She is not of us, as I divine;
She comes from another stiller world of the dead.”

He lay still and awe-stricken, gazing at the fair young face that shone so white in the dim light. It was turned fully toward him, and the large blue eyes were fixed upon his face in an intent gaze. He quivered under it, and keen arrows of pain shot along his nerves, but he could not turn his eyes from the vision. Not a feature, not a curve, not an outline escaped him. He noted how soft and long were the dark, curling tresses that fell in loose waves upon her shoulders, how gracefully the plain dark robe was fitted to the slender figure, how proudly her white throat rose from the dark folds.

Death had not robbed her of that superlative beauty that charmed the eyes of all beholders. The frank, violet eyes, the arch red mouth, the adorable little nose, the cream-white skin, the dark waving hair all were here as of yore, and thrilled his heart again with a passion of love and despair.

He gazed and gazed, his nerves strained to their utmost tension, and she stood there moveless, stirless, breathless, it almost seemed, for his own tense, heavy breathing drowned all other sounds in the room.

At length with a great effort of will, he broke the bonds that held him, and cried out, hoarsely:

“Aline, Aline, have you come back from the dead to reproach me?”

It was like an electric shock galvanizing the seeming ghost into life. The girl started and made a step forward. She came nearer and nearer until she was leaning toward him, and her sweet, warm breath floating over his cheek. This was no ghost, but a living, breathing, sentient woman!

“Oh, Mr. Delaney,” she cried, with something like awe in her voice, “is it possible that you take me for a ghost?”

He could not speak for joy. His brain reeled deliriously. Could it be Aline Rodney in the flesh? Aline Rodney, come back to him before he died, looking at him kindly, speaking to him gently? Should he not awaken presently and find it all a delusive dream?

He put out his wasted hand and touched her warm, white wrist.

“Let me touch you, for I cannot believe my eyes,” he said, wistfully. “Is it really you, Aline, or only the blessedest dream that ever dazed a man’s senses?”

She did not repulse him. She let him hold her hand in his a moment that he might assure himself of the reality of this vision.

“Yes, it is really I,” she said, reassuringly, and then she added, curiously, “Why did you take me for a ghost? Did any one tell you I was dead?”

“No, no, it was only my fancy. I was dazed when I opened my eyes and saw you there. I had not heard a sound except the cinders falling from the grate. What could I think but that you were a ghostly visitant from another world?”

She stood gazing down at him, seeming to forget that her hand still lay lightly in the clasp of his.

“They told me to come in softly,” she said. “They thought that you might be asleep. So I turned the knob softly and came in. But when I saw that your eyes were closed I was just going away quietly again when you awakened.”

“It was very good of you to come,” he said, softly pressing the warm, white hand that lay passive in his. “I did not deserve it. I thought that you would hate and scorn me too bitterly ever to speak to me again. Thank you a thousand times for coming.”

Something came into the wistful face into which he was anxiously gazing--kindness, pity, almost sadness.

“Yes, I have been very angry with you,” she said, with a curious catch in her breath. “I meant that you should never, never see my face again. But they told me that you were--were ill, and then I came. You know we forgive all things to the dying.”