Chapter XXXVI

“Aline, will you come down to the river and skate this morning? The ice is ten inches thick, and as smooth as glass,” said Max Rodney to his sister the morning after Effie’s marriage.

She shook her head with a slight, wintery smile.

“Do not tempt me, Max,” she said, “you have got me into too many scrapes in the past, and now I have promised mamma that I will never do so any more.”

The handsome, rosy-cheeked boy, with the skates slung carelessly over his shoulder, regarded her with palpable disappointment.

“Oh, Allie, do come,” he said. “Do you remember last winter what glorious fun we had on the river? And now it is smoother and better than it was then. I know you would like it, and I’m sure mamma would not care.”

“I cannot go, Max,” Aline answered, sadly. “Please do not tease me, there’s a good boy.”

The light-hearted boy went up to her and pulled away the white hands that half shielded the pale, pretty face. He was too young and thoughtless to know much of the sorrow that had come to Aline.

“Aline, what has come over you?” he said. “It used to be that I would rather you came out with me for a lark than any fellow I know. But ever since you were lost and came back, you have been changed. Why is it?”

“It is nothing, Max, only that mamma thinks I am getting too old to be your childish playmate any longer,” Aline answered with a forced smile.

“Bosh! Is that all? Why, there’s lots and lots of grown people on the river this morning. You need not be a childish playmate this time. There are lots of older people to keep you company. Say, will you come?”

“I cannot. I would not go among those people for anything,” she answered.

“I don’t see why. You can skate better than any of them--you are just like a bird,” he said. “I say, sister, I shall ask mamma. Will you go if she says yes?”

“Not even then!” she answered, half hesitatingly, for the proposal was not without its charms.

Her old passion for out-of-door sports returned to her. She longed to be skimming the glittering ice with her light swift feet, and feeling the rush of the cold sweet breeze against the cheeks that had grown pale and thin in the months while she had been hiding herself sensitively within doors from the sneers and frowns of those who had traduced her so bitterly.

“You will come if mamma will come too, won’t you?” persisted Max, unwilling to yield the point.

“Mamma will not go,” replied Aline.

The door opened, and Mrs. Rodney came suddenly into the room. She had a lugubrious look on her face and her eyelids were pink from weeping. She had been having a private crying spell over the loss of her elder daughter.

She had caught Aline’s words, and now looked inquiringly into her pale face. But eager Max forestalled the question that trembled on her lips.

“Mamma, I want you and Aline to come down to the river with me for the skating. Will you come?”

Mrs. Rodney looked at Aline’s pale cheeks and heavy eyes, and her first resolve to negative the proposal died on her lips. She saw the girl was fading and drooping in her enforced seclusion.

“Should you like to go, my dear?” she asked.

“With you, mamma,” Aline answered, wistfully.

“Very well. We will go for a little while. Wrap yourself up warmly, dear, and Max shall get your skates ready.”

Aline ran up to her room, full of pleasurable anticipation, for she was an expert skater, and always enjoyed being on the ice. A girlish impulse prompted her to make herself as pretty as possible. She let down her dark, curling hair loosely over her shoulders, and donned a dark-red cashmere trimmed with silvery fur, a warm, wadded jacket of red, and a jaunty fur cap having a little bird perched on one side. Then she sallied forth with Max and Mrs. Rodney, who was so warmly wrapped up in cloth and fur and thick veils that barely the tip of her aristocratic-looking nose was visible to the beholder.

They had a bracing walk of half a mile in the cool, fresh air of the clear, wintery morning, and then the river burst upon their view like a sheet of silver, dotted about with merry youths and maidens who were sliding merrily about over the crystal expanse, without a thought of danger.

Many of them were Aline’s old friends and companions with whom she had been a prime favorite until that mysterious trouble fell upon her. Her heart warmed to them as she saw the smiling, familiar faces and heard their merry voices. A longing came over her to be friends with them again, to touch their hands, to hear their voices talking to her in the old friendly, familiar way. Everything was so gay, so merry, so unceremonious, she half hoped they would relent and welcome her to her old place among them.

Poor Aline! The light came into her violet eyes, the rich color flushed her cheeks at the thought. She looked wistfully at the groups that dotted the shore and the river as she came up. Her heart beat with anxiety and expectation. Would any one speak to her? Would any one of all these, her old friends, give her one friendly clasp of the hand?

Vain thought, vain hope! As they saw her coming among them with her eager, expectant face and her winning beauty, every one turned aside with cold, averted looks, and scarcely restrained sneers. In a moment she stood solitary, with her mother and Max, in a spot where only a moment ago more than a score of people had been. They had tacitly deserted and ignored her. That strange sense of loneliness in crowds so often felt by the sensitive heart came over her now. Something like a strangling gasp came from her lips, and then she shut them tightly together, and held her small head high, with a proud, stag-like movement that was almost defiance. In her heart she was saying, bitterly: “They may scorn me as they will, but they shall not crush me! I have done no wrong, and in time I shall live down their cruel slanders!”

“Do not mind them, Aline,” her mother whispered tenderly; but Aline heard the quiver in her mother’s voice, and it sent a fresh pang to her own heart.

“Never mind, Max,” she said to the boy, who was kneeling down to fasten her skates. “Do not put them on, please. I shall not skate. I had rather go home.”

“Oh, no, not yet--” he began; but just at that moment a shabbily dressed old woman pushed him aside and came up in front of Aline. She had a basket of cheap laces on her arm, which she paraded ostentatiously.

“Will the leddies buy some of my pretty things--collerettes, _jabots_, cuffs, scarfs--de finest things in lace,” whimpered she.

Mrs. Rodney shook her head with a smile.

“We want nothing at all, my good woman,” said she.

“Let me tell the young lady’s fortune, then. I am a fortune-teller, and I tell de truest fortunes you ever heard. I have told a many for the young gents and leddies this morning. They say every word is true. This is the sweetest face I have seen yet. Let me tell her what is past and what will be,” cried the old crone, loquaciously.

“No, no, go away! We do not wish to hear anything!” said Mrs. Rodney, impatiently.

But Aline turned her blue eyes wistfully upon her mother’s face.

“Oh, mamma, I should like it so much,” she said, pleadingly.

“Like _what_, my dear?” inquired Mrs. Rodney, uncomprehendingly.

“To have this good woman read my past and future,” Aline answered, with a blush.

“But, my dear, she cannot possibly know anything of the kind. Fortune-tellers are all frauds. They only guess at things,” said Mrs. Rodney.

“I should like to hear what she has to say,” insisted Aline, willfully.

“Oh, very well, my dear, just as you please, but you will only hear a pack of stories,” Mrs. Rodney replied; but she crossed the old fortune-teller’s coarse palm with the traditional silver piece, and Aline drew the warm glove from her delicate hand expectantly.

The old lace-vender set her basket down on the ground and took the little hand into her own large and brown one.

“What is this I see?” she said, squinting her gray eyes at the rosy palm. “The line of life is crossed with sorrows. You have had a great trouble in your life. You are very unhappy, and you are doomed to be even more unhappy--”

“Do not tell her such jargon,” broke in Mrs. Rodney, impatiently.

“I but read what I see, madam,” said the seer. “And I see nothing but blight and sorrow. I cannot understand it, for I see no love in her past--none of that love that makes or mars a woman’s life. The shadows come from other things, from other influences. And yet--” she paused and looked searchingly into Aline’s marble-white face.

“And yet--” repeated the girl in a tone of eager inquiry.

The fortune-teller went on without removing her keen gaze from Aline’s wistful face:

“And yet, although you have never loved, there is a man mixed up in your past and future strangely. He is dark and grand and handsome, but he has cast a shadow on your life, a thick, dark shadow so dense you cannot see beyond it. You blush, yet the man is nothing to you. I cannot understand it.”

It was true that Aline was blushing hotly, and she was gazing in wonder at the strange old woman.

“Go on,” she said, in a low, almost pleading voice “Tell me--will those dark clouds ever be lifted from my life?”

“It is hard to tell. I said I could read your future, but the clouds that overhang it are too dark and heavy. I cannot pierce their gloom. Perhaps the sun may shine for you again, perhaps, never! Let me see!”

She held the little palm close up before her eyes.

“Ah, there is a _secret_! You are young to hold so much hidden in your heart. I may tell you this much. You will never be happy until that secret is openly revealed! It will cost you too much to keep it hid! If there are any who love you they will never rest, they will never cease striving to fathom the secret that has shadowed your life so darkly.”

She dropped the little hand abruptly, caught up her basket, and strode quickly away, leaving Aline and her mother stupefied with surprise.