Chapter XLVII

If the solid earth had parted beneath Oran Delaney’s feet, he could not have been more surprised than he was at those words from Aline Rodney’s lips. He did not answer, only stared at her in hopeless bewilderment.

“I came here to ask you to marry me,” she repeated, clearly, thinking he had not heard her, and no blush stained the pale cheek, the white lids did not droop over the blue eyes that gazed at him frankly and gravely. What did she mean? Had she gone mad under the stress of her great trial?

He went over to her and lifted one of the white hands that hung by her side. It was cold as ice as he held it in the warm clasp of his own.

“Aline, child, I do not understand you. What was it you said to me?”

He saw a little shiver creep over the slender form, but she looked up at him bravely, and repeated her words:

“I want you to marry me, Mr. Delaney.”

“To marry you, Aline? Do you then love me, my poor child?” he asked, gazing into the clear eyes with sudden compassion.

She shook her small head gravely.

“No, but I want to be your wife,” she said, and the words filled him with the most utter bewilderment.

There she stood, a young, beautiful, intelligent girl, usurping his sex’s prerogative with a calm, unblushing face and clear, frank eyes that regarded him with the innocent light of a child’s--the calmness of an unawakened heart.

“You do not love me, yet you wish to be my wife! Aline, are you dreaming, or am I?” he asked, drawing her forward into the warmth of the bright fire, for little shivers of deadly cold were shaking the girlish form from head to foot.

He saw a sudden, passionate pain flame into the pale face. She threw out her hand with a gesture of despair.

“No, I am not dreaming, nor are you,” she said. “I would to God that we were! This reality is more horrible than any dream!”

“But, why--why should you wish--wish to--to--” he began, and paused, unable to continue, and feeling a shamed consciousness of a fiery, uncontrollable color overspreading his face. To be wooed in this calm, business-like fashion by this ridiculous child was too strange, too absurd for anything, and yet there were little thrills of rapturous emotion tingling along his nerves, his heart was beating quickly with emotion.

The girl’s eyes had wandered to the leaping flames of the firelight. She turned them back gravely to his face.

“Why do I wish you to marry me?” she said. “I will tell you, Mr. Delaney. The secret of my stay in this house has been discovered!”

“You have broken your oath!” he exclaimed in sudden anger.

She stood before him in proud silence, neither denying nor assenting to his affirmation.

Gazing at the fair face a moment he felt that he had wronged her by the brief suspicion.

“Aline, forgive me. I see that I am suspecting you unjustly,” he said. “But tell me, who has revealed the secret?”

“I do not know,” she answered. “But only a little while ago papa came in and charged me with it. He was very, very angry.”

“Angry with you?” he questioned.

“Angry with you,” she answered, a faint color creeping into the pallid face. “He told me that you had forever compromised my good name, and that I could never take my place in the world, in society, unless you married me.”

She was speaking to him with the simple directness of a child. He was staggered by her simplicity--assurance he would have called it in any other woman.

“And so he sent you here to ask me?” he said.

A look of terror came over the fair face. She glanced around her, fearfully.

“No, I have stolen away, and if he misses me he will come here to seek for me,” she said. “I must hurry back, but first I must have an answer to my question. Tell me, Mr. Delaney, will you do as I have asked you?”