Chapter VIII

The terrible, blood curdling cries that had so startled Aline had, indeed, suddenly ceased. The mysterious mansion had returned to its strange, brooding silence.

Forgetful of her anger against Mr. Delaney in her fear and terror, Aline clung nervously to his arm with one trembling little hand.

“Oh! Mr. Delaney, what is it--that terrible creature I saw yesterday?” she cried out fearfully.

His dark face was strangely agitated as he turned it upon her wistful face.

“Then you really _saw_ it?” he said, almost as if speaking to himself.

“Yes, I saw it. Did you suppose it struck me that murderous blow _invisibly?_” she questioned, with something like awe.

“I had hoped--” he began, then paused, after his abrupt fashion of leaving sentences unfinished.

“Answer me,” exclaimed Aline, in her sharp, imperious young voice. “What was it that struck me with that blood-stained dagger yesterday? What was it I heard shrieking like a lost soul to-day? Tell me!”

“It was a ghost,” he answered, turning his head away.

“I do not believe you,” cried Aline. “It was not a ghost. It was something warmed by the breath of life. It clutched me with warm, living fingers. It was strong and swift. Oh, Heaven, how terrible it was!” she shuddered. “Was it really a human being?”

“It was a ghost--a mystery! I can tell you no more,” repeated Oran Delaney.

And then, with that strong will, which Aline already began to subtly recognize, he changed the subject of the conversation.

“Have you forgiven me for my rudeness of last night?” he inquired, with a touch of gentleness in his voice.

“No,” Aline answered, tartly.

“I have brought you these beautiful flowers as a peace offering,” he continued, unruffled by her childish resentment. “You cannot refuse them, for I know that you love flowers very dearly.”

“I shall never love them again,” she replied, obstinately. “I shall always remember that my fondness for flowers brought down all this trouble upon my head.”

“I beg your pardon; it was your fondness for peaches,” he retorted, with a slight gleam of mirth. “If you had not come into my house to take luncheon with me, nothing would have happened.”

“I should never have come into your garden even but for the flowers,” she replied, offended that he should remind her of her appetite for peaches.

He smiled, and then a subtle sigh drove the evanescent gleam away.

“Well, we will not quarrel over the cause,” he said. “The result is the same. I am sorry you will not have my poor flowers. I hoped they would beguile some of the tedium of your illness.”

He put the basket on a stand near her and sat down.

“Mrs. Griffin has sent me to take care of you during her absence,” he said. “But if my presence is disagreeable, Miss Rodney, you can send me away at any moment.”

Aline inwardly wished that she was brave enough to do so, but she was too nervous and frightened to take him at his word. There was a sense of protection in his presence that she could not forego even to gratify her spite at him.

So she lay silently gazing at his dark, stern profile under her long lashes until he turned suddenly and caught the curious gaze of the large liquid blue eyes. He smiled slightly as they fell before his.

“You have not said whether I am to stay or go,” he said.

Aline hesitated a moment, then answered in a low, half-angry voice:

“Stay.”

“Thanks. I was afraid you would send me away,” he said.

“I would, but--but I am afraid to stay here alone,” she replied with spirit.

Something like anger flashed into his dark face a moment, but was quickly dispelled by the thought, “Why be angry with a willful child whom I have unavoidably offended?”

“You are very frank. I quite understand that I am retained in your presence merely in the character of a watch-dog,” he replied, with some _hauteur_. “But while I _am_ here, pray make me of service if possible. Can I do anything for you--talk to you--read to you?”

She caught eagerly at the last suggestion.

“Yes, you may read to me. I do not like to talk to you. You make me angry when I talk to you,” she said.

“You are very flattering, Miss Rodney. However, I do not forget that you are sick. We pardon the discourtesies of invalids,” he said, calmly, going over to a little stand littered with volumes bound prettily in blue and gold.

“What is your preference--prose or poetry?” he inquired, carelessly turning them over.

“Poetry,” she replied.

“Naturally--being young,” he muttered, half to himself.

“Do you mean to say that I shall not love poetry when I grow old--like you?” she asked, purposely adding the sting of the last words.

But he faced around toward her with an expression of the most palpable amusement.

“Do I appear very old in your eyes, Miss Rodney?” he inquired.

“‘As old as the hills’--you are, aren’t you, sir?” she replied, with malice prepense.

“I was three-and-thirty yesterday, my frank lady,” he answered, coolly. “As for you, judging from your words and manner, I should guess that you are about ten years old.”

The delicate shaft of sarcasm went home. Aline knew that she deserved it, and that she had been behaving rudely to the courteous gentleman under whose roof she was. But she was by no means prepared to acknowledge her fault. She was bitterly angry with him, because he had refused to communicate with her friends.

“Please go on with the poetry,” she said, assuming an air of dignity, and taking no notice of his last words.

He opened the book he was holding, and commenced to read a poem quite at random:

“How many years will it be, I wonder.
And how will their slow length pass,
Till I shall find rest in silence, under
The trees and the waving grass?

“Many there be in the world who love it,
Who cling to its trifles and toys;
But I could never find aught to covet
Among its vanishing joys.

“But once, indeed, was my heart elated,
And pleased with a dream of its own--
A beautiful dream it was, but fated
Soon to be overthrown.

“Death, like a shadow, fell and darkened
The light that had shone so clear--
How oft since then have I vainly hearkened,
And prayed for his coming near.

“But he cometh not, and I vainly wonder,
How will the long years pass,
Till I shall find rest in silence, under
The trees and waving grass.”

He paused and Aline, impressed against her will, but determined not to show it, cried out, almost peevishly:

“Why did you read such a doleful thing? I do not like sad poetry.”

“That is the fault of your youth again,” he quietly answered. “Now I, on the contrary, rather admire the pathetic style. The time may come, perhaps, when that very poem will please your fancy. Nay, you may even subscribe to the sad sentiment it embodies.”

“I should never do that if I lived to be as old as Methuselah!” cried Aline, with the rash confidence of youth, and Oran Delaney smiled--that slow, pensive smile whose latent sarcasm she already began to understand with the swift intuition of woman.

“Why do you despise youth, Mr. Delaney?” she cried out, hotly.

“I do not despise it, I only pity it,” he answered.

“I can fancy age deserving pity, but not youth,” she answered, resentfully. “Why do you pity it?”

“For its illusions,” he answered, and this time the sarcasm had faded from his voice and face. Both were genuinely sad.

“Its illusions--what are they?” queried the girl, and again he smiled, sadly.

“Do not ask me. They will come home to you soon enough, as they have done to me. Youth is the happiest period of life. I pity it because it comes to an end. I do not despise it, and I fully subscribe to the poet’s plaint:

“‘The loss of youth is sadness
To all who think or feel--
A wound no after-gladness
Can ever wholly heal.’”

Aline lay very still for a moment, gazing silently at him with a feeling of vexation that she had permitted herself to listen to him with interest and even with an unconscious latent sympathy. She was about to make some careless answer to show her utter indifference, and to provoke him again, when she suddenly observed that he had turned deathly pale, and that a stream of blood was pouring from inside his coat sleeve down upon his hand.

“You are wounded, too!” she cried out in dismay, and feeling a deathly faintness stealing over her at sight of the trickling blood.

“It is nothing--a mere flesh wound--a scratch,” he muttered, tearing off his coat, hastily, and then Aline saw that his shirt-sleeve had been torn open and his arm bandaged above the elbow, but the linen had become loosened in some way, and the gaping wound was bleeding profusely.

He tried clumsily to draw the crimson bandage tighter about the wound, but he was very awkward with his left hand, and he did not succeed. Aline could not help being sorry for him.