Chapter LXVI

Mrs. Griffin had slipped out of the room quietly with her tray of empty dishes a moment before. They were alone. Aline shivered a little. He looked so wan and ill, what if he should die here alone with her?

She half rose from her seat, trembling with agitation, and made a step toward the door.

“Are you going so soon?” he asked wistfully.

It flashed over her that it was cowardly to leave him alone because she was afraid to see him die. When he held out his hand to her she went up bravely to his side.

“I will try not to be afraid,” she said to herself.

“You are going before I have said all that I wish to say to you,” he said.

A sudden light flashed over her face.

“Oh, and there is something I must say to you--I had nearly forgotten!” she exclaimed.

“Well,” he asked, looking up into the wide blue eyes regarding him attentively.

“They told me you had made a will--that you had left me a great fortune. Oh, Mr. Delaney, that must not be! I cannot take it!” she cried, earnestly.

“You must, Aline. It is but a small reparation for all the sorrow I have caused you,” he said.

“But I do not wish to do so. I refuse to accept it!” she cried.

“You are a rash and foolish child, or you would not refuse to accept a fortune, Aline,” he said.

“No matter. I will not have it,” she said, resolutely.

“You do not know what pleasures it will procure you,” he argued.

“I shall not care for them,” she replied. “You must leave your fortune to some one else, Mr. Delaney.”

“To whom?” he asked.

“I do not know. Any one you wish,” she replied, indifferently.

All in a moment he caught her hand with a strength she had not deemed him possessed of, and drew her toward him.

“Aline, darling,” he whispered, with his lips very near to her cheek, “will you not let me leave the fortune to my wife?”

She staggered back from him, the color flowing out of her cheeks.

“Your wife?” she faltered.

“Yes, my wife,” he said. “Oh, Aline, do not turn away from me so coldly. I love you, my darling, and I could die happy if I could call you my wife, if but once before that great final hour. Oh, Aline, will you give yourself to me for the little while I have to live? I do not deserve such happiness, I know, but it will be such a boon to me that you cannot refuse. It is only for a little while, you know, only to soothe a dying hour!”

She gazed at him, bewildered by his eloquence, her face growing deadly white.

“Do you hear me, Aline?” he asked. “I am asking you to be my wife. I love you devotedly. I have loved you ever since I first met you. Will you not grant my request?”

“I do not want to be married, Mr. Delaney, and--and--you are only asking me because--of--that--night,” she said, slowly, with downcast eyes.

“On my honor, no, Aline. I am asking you because you won my heart long before that dreadful night, and because it would make me happy in dying to know that I had left you my fortune and my proud old name. It is a most honorable name. Aline, even you, so beautiful and sweet, need not disdain it,” he said.

She did not answer a word. She seemed like one dazed by the suddenness of all this.

“You said you would do anything to atone for your father’s sin, Aline,” he said, earnestly. “Will you do this? Would it be very irksome to be my wife a few days or hours, as the case might be? It would only be a little while, remember.”

She raised her large, earnest eyes to his face.

“It would be only a little while--that is true,” she said reflectively. “I wonder what my father would wish me to do?”

“Will you let me ask him?” said Oran Delaney, eagerly.

“Yes, you may ask him, and I will do just what he tells me. I owe him that much obedience in return for all the sorrow I have caused him,” said Aline, with her pretty, childish directness.