“But, my child,” he said, in a softer tone than he had yet used, “did you not promise just now to answer all of my questions?” The blue eyes dilated in innocent surprise. “Oh, no, papa,” she replied. “I thought it could do no harm to admit anything that you already knew; so I did not hesitate to own that I had been at Delaney House, and that I received my wound there. But of the manner in which I received my hurt I cannot tell you since you do not know. I am bound to silence. I cannot break my word of honor.” CHAPTER XLIII. Mr. Rodney regarded his daughter with a disappointed and baffled air. He had set a trap to surprise all the details of her secret from her, deeming it no harm to do so. But she had been too quick-witted for him. He saw that he was to learn nothing from her that he did not already know. He was bitterly angry with her. His outraged pride prompted him to denounce her in the bitterest terms, and to drive her forth from his roof as one unworthy to dwell in the home she had dishonored. Something stronger than his own will held him back. As he gazed at her clinging feebly to the back of the chair, weak and white from the effects of her accident yesterday, and with that look of helpless innocence on the fair young face, his conviction of her guiltiness was staggered. In the face of all the evidence, in the face of her terrible silence, he could scarcely believe that his beautiful, petted daughter was a deliberate sinner. Yet what was the meaning of the mystery in which she shrouded her absence from her home? Why had she gone to Delaney House, and what had she been doing there? If Oran Delaney had wronged his little darling, he said to himself, fiercely, his life should pay the forfeit. “Aline,” he said to her with startling abruptness; “tell me, what is Oran Delaney to you?” She shivered and started as if an icy wind had swept across her. “Tell me,” he repeated sharply, “what is Oran Delaney to you?” The sweet, frank blue eyes lifted earnestly to his face. “He is nothing, papa,” she replied. “Nothing _now_, you mean,” he said. “Well, I will put my query in another shape. What _has_ he been to you?” Her heart thrilled bitterly at the pointed question. An impulse came over her to tell him the truth--to say, bitterly and truly, “He has been the evil genius of my life; he has spoiled my life for me; he has blighted all the budding hopes of my youth, and made earth a wide Sahara, where I must walk with blistered feet and a fainting heart.” This would have been the truest answer she could have made, she said, bitterly, to herself; but she shut her lips over the unspoken words--they were not for her to say. “You do not answer me, Aline,” said her father, and then she answered, gravely: “I can only repeat what I said to you before. He is nothing to me.”