Chapter XVII

The long, sweet summer days glided past into September. Already the parti-colored leaves of autumn began to be whirled through the air by the cool sweet breeze. There were hints of autumn coolness in the breeze as it sighed among the trees in the little country town of Chester.

Those summer days from July until September had been full of suspense and sorrow to the Rodneys. Each day had been full of disappointment and harrowing suspense. Each day had only added to the impenetrable mystery that hung around the fate of the lost daughter. The New York detective, baffled for once in his life, had given up the case and returned to New York. In all his expeditions, in all his search, he had failed to find the house with the marble steps, the house that held the mysterious blue-and-white room where the beautiful wounded girl was hidden away. Mr. Lane was moody and irritable over his failure. He had conscientiously tried to succeed in finding Aline, and he could not understand why he had failed. After the fashion of many other unsuccessful people he sought some one else to lay the blame upon, and Dr. Anthony’s broad shoulders were selected for that purpose. Mr. Lane sarcastically denied the existence of the blue room, the masked villain, and the wounded girl. He did not hesitate to declare that Dr. Anthony had dreamed the whole thing.

Dr. Anthony was not shaken in his convictions by the great detective’s incredulity. But he was very good-natured. He admitted that he had told a startling tale. He gave any one who chose full liberty to disbelieve it. For himself he was puzzled, vexed, chagrined at his own self, for he had made some private excursions on his own account and he had failed as ignominiously as Mr. Lane in finding the mysterious house and the mysterious maiden. It chagrined him to think that he had been so cleverly blinded, but he never once subscribed to the detective’s theory that he had been fooled by an hallucination of the brain.

“My imagination is not so brilliant as you would give me credit for,” he said, laughing. “A poet’s brain might produce such a vision of peerless beauty off-hand, but not that of a prosaic physician. It was not a dream, it was not an hallucination, it was a strange reality. I shall assert that always, the whole world to the contrary notwithstanding.”

But although the great detective had grown incredulous over the story, the Rodneys had not. They placed the most implicit faith in the doctor. He remained their valued friend, and Chester saw more of him in those days than Maywood. All his spare time, which did not really amount to much, since he had a large and steadily increasing practice, was spent at the little cottage home that nestled under the towers of Delaney House--the great house of the town. Through those troublesome days and nights he and Effie were learning the first tenses of that old, old lesson ever new--to love.

Greatly to the surprise and joy of all, Mrs. Rodney had rallied from her illness and was slowly convalescing. She was strong enough now to be brought down into the pretty parlor every evening and rest upon a reclining-chair while the ebb of talk flowed on around her, to which she listened with languid interest. The town folks were very sympathetic and social, deeming it a sort of duty to visit and comfort the afflicted family. Some one or other dropped in every evening, so that the Rodneys, whatever other sorrow they labored under, could not complain of loneliness. But with the cool, short autumn evenings, and as the loss of Aline Rodney grew an old, old story, other interests began to usurp the place of the great sensation. Visitors grew less frequent at the cottage. They preferred to linger at their own firesides. It was only Dr. Anthony now who came every evening, if he only had time to look in for ten minutes. Every face brightened at his coming, every heart felt lighter for his words of cheer.

But once he had quite a whole evening at his disposal. He had been visiting a patient near Chester, and as soon as he could he went to the cottage, and putting his horse into the stable announced that he had several hours to spend with his friends. All were pleased at the prospect, for a dull drizzling rain had set in, and the evening had promised to be lonely. More than once, as the wind sighed in the trees and the rain pattered down upon the roof, had been recalled Bryant’s appropriate lines:

“The melancholy days are come,
The saddest of the year.”

Dr. Anthony’s coming put quite a new face upon the evening. They indulged in some little cheerfulness. They did not forget Aline, but they tried to take some little comfort in their lives. It is impossible to grieve always.

“We bear the blows that sever,
We cannot weep forever.”

Papa sat by the shaded reading lamp with a new book. Mamma was resting in her low, reclining-chair, looking pale but pretty in her soft garnet cashmere and the little lace cap on her wavy brown hair that began to show some lines of gray since Aline had gone. Her idle white hands were folded in her lap. They were mostly idle now. She had no heart to work, but a gentle, pensive smile illumined her fair face this evening.

Effie had opened the long-disused piano and was singing softly, while Dr. Anthony turned the leaves of her music. She wore a blue dress and a late September rose in her soft braids of hair. Max had fallen asleep on the sofa. The quiet repose of each figure, the pretty, simple parlor, the autumn flowers in the vases, the low fire that burned upon the hearth to dispel the chill of the rain, all made up a pretty picture of home-comfort that had a very alluring appearance to the passers-by, who chanced to glance through the unshuttered windows at the scene. Effie’s song, too, as floated out upon the night air, was very sweet and sad:

“Mother, now sing me to rest,
For the long, long day is done;
Fold me to sleep on thy breast
As the night folds up the sun.

“For my heart is heavy with fears.
And my feet are aweary with play;
Hide me from life’s lengthened years--
Fold me from weeping away.

“These flowers, so blessed and sweet,
I’ve gathered from far and from near;
I lay them all down at thy feet--
They are wet with many a tear.

“But, mother, now sing me to rest,
Take back the lone child, tired with playing;
Fold me to sleep on thy breast--
All the day long vainly straying.”

The soft hush of silence that fell as Effie’s voice died away was broken by a shrill and piercing scream. Mrs. Rodney had sprung to her feet with a strength no one had believed her possessed of. She stood erect in the center of the floor, her slim forefinger pointed at the window, her eyes wildly dilating, her face pale and agitated, while shriek after shriek burst from her writhing lips:

“Aline! Aline! Aline!”

Every one turned to the spot indicated by that quivering forefinger. Every eye beheld a wild white face with dark dilated eyes and streaming hair, pressed for a moment against the window-pane. Then, while they yet gazed, it was swiftly withdrawn and vanished in the darkness and the falling rain like a phantom of the night.

Effie’s voice rang out wild and horror-stricken above her mother’s piercing wails:

“A ghost! A ghost! Ah, now I know that our poor Aline is dead!”

Dr. Anthony stood for a moment like one rooted to the spot. He had recognized on the instant the beautiful pale face of the mysteriously wounded girl in the blue room. It was true, then, as he had believed. She was no other than Aline Rodney.

He stood still a moment like one stupefied, then, turning suddenly, rushed to the door, flung it open, and disappeared in the rain and darkness of the wild autumn night.

Mr. Rodney, after one moment of dazed indecision, flung down his book and rushed after him.

Effie flew to her mother’s arms.

“Oh, mamma, she is dead, Aline is dead--our dear, dear little Aline!” she sobbed, in a passion of despair.

Little Max, awakened by the sound of their anguished voices, ran to them and added his frightened voice to the tumult of the scene. Mrs. Rodney continued to wail heart-brokenly.

“Aline! Aline! Aline! Oh, I am justly punished for my harshness to you! It was your ghost looking in at the window just as you looked down at me that day from the window of the room where I had locked you! Oh, my child, my poor dead darling, forgive, forgive, forgive! Come back to me, Aline, and tell me you will forgive me!” As if in answer to her passionate appeals, the door was flung suddenly open again, and Mr. Rodney and Dr. Anthony re-entered the room. They walked slowly, for they carried a wet and dripping burden between them, which they laid upon the floor at Mrs. Rodney’s feet.