Chapter LIV

It was a strange mockery of fate that had thrown Oran Delaney, wounded and helpless, beneath the roof of the man whom he had injured, and who had wounded him near unto death.

Yet so it was; and he was likely to remain there several weeks, for the physician, who was summoned to attend him, declared that the wound was a serious, if not fatal, one, and that it would be some time before he could be moved with safety.

Mr. Rodney, who had been temporarily maddened by excitement last night, had come to his senses now. He made no attempt to fly from the consequences of his assault upon Oran Delaney. He went and delivered himself up to the authorities, accusing himself of the crime.

They laughed at him at first--it was so strange for a man to accuse himself of crime without even a witness to testify against him--but he insisted that his statement was true; so they put him under bonds to appear when Mr. Delaney was well enough to come into court, and released him.

In a day or two, when he was well enough to be seen, he told Oran Delaney what he had done.

“So that, whether you live or die, your wrong will be avenged,” he said, grimly.

“I do not wish it so,” said Oran Delaney, gravely. “In any case, I shall not appear against you. You only did what I, in your place, would have done. No one can blame you.”

Mr. Rodney said to himself that if the man’s sense of honor was so lively, he should not have acted as he did with regard to Aline. He said nothing, however--only turned upon his heel and left the room. His heart was on fire with anxiety, for he had heard no word of Aline since that snowy eve when, finding that her secret was discovered, she had fled from her home.

Neither had any trace been found of the escaped lunatic who had fired Delaney House. Mrs. Griffin had been so suffocated by the smoke and flame of the hall that she had been unable to prosecute her search far. She had been forced to retreat before she had penetrated all the rooms. It was the same way with the men who had gone to the rescue. The smoke and flame had beaten them quickly back. So it was not certainly known yet whether the dreadful creature had fallen a victim to the fury of the fire her own hand had kindled, or if she had wandered out into the stormy night and perished in some of the huge drifts of snow that the wild wind had blown together in out-of-the-way places.

But the storm was over now, and the deep snow was melting away. It was three days since Delaney House had been burned.

The hidden secret for whose keeping poor Aline Rodney had paid so dire a penalty, belonged to the world now. Oran Delaney, in the troubles that had crowded thickly upon him, had thrown pride to the winds and revealed all.

Let us listen to him as he tells his own story to Mr. Rodney.

“I will tell you my story briefly now,” he said, “and then you will understand why I have led such a strange, retired life. And,” he added, with a dark-red flush creeping over his handsome face, “you will know, too, that I have never harmed your beautiful young daughter as you think. She is as innocent and pure as she is fair.”

Somehow the words carried conviction to Mr. Rodney’s heart. He waited eagerly for the story Mr. Delaney had promised to tell him.

His first words filled him with horror and amazement.

“That poor, deformed maniac whom you saw in that upper room, who set fire to Delaney House, was my wedded wife,” he said, with a shudder he could not repress.

“Great Heavens, your wife! How could you wed that creature?” Mr. Rodney cried out, startled.

“How, indeed!” echoed Mr. Delaney, with a groan. “But that is what I am about to tell you. I was made the innocent victim of a terrible fraud.”

Mr. Rodney began to feel strangely interested in this man whom his avenging bullet had laid low upon a bed of pain. He waited eagerly for further disclosures.

“Who could have perpetrated such a monstrous fraud?” he exclaimed.