Mr. Rodney obeyed mechanically. He was so surprised and confused by the sudden, dreadful sounds that still assailed his ears that he seemed to have no volition of his own. He moved toward the door that Mr. Delaney held open, and passed quickly through it, followed by his host. “Are you sure that Aline is not here?” he asked, as they passed through the hall, his mind suddenly recurring to the fact of her absence an hour ago which had been discovered by her mother and reported to him in a frenzy of alarm. “I give you my word of honor that she left me only a minute before you entered. You must have met her only for the darkness of the night. I am quite sure you will find her at home when you return,” Oran Delaney answered, confidently. “I shall send a friend to you in the morning to make arrangements,” Mr. Rodney said, presently. “Very well. I shall make my will to-night,” Mr. Delaney answered, with grim pleasantry. Then he opened the heavy door and ushered his visitor out into the snowy night, in whose gloom and darkness Aline had disappeared a little while ago. CHAPTER LI. When the retreating footsteps of his neighbor had died in the stillness of the night, Oran Delaney closed and locked the door against the outer darkness and returned to the library. He walked to the hearth and stood there gazing thoughtfully down into the glowing fire. “The last night of my life, perhaps,” he said, half aloud. “Ah, me! how terribly I have been tempted to-night! How easy it would have been to have flung honor to the winds and yielded to the impulse that prompted me to seek happiness at whatever cost. Happiness--‘ay, there’s the rub’--should I have been happy? Would not conscience have pursued me with the bloodhounds of remorse?” The weird shrieks of the fabled ghost of Delaney Hall had died away into silence now. In the stillness of the room a heavy sigh was distinctly audible as it drifted across the dark mustached lips. “Poor child! Now I understand why she came to me on that strange mission to-night. She would have sacrificed herself to appease her father’s wrath and to save me! And I had to be cruel and unkind to her because I was not free!” The wind sighed in the trees outside, and the bare branches rustled eerily. He thought to himself, with a shudder, that the snow must be deep by now. It had been falling almost steadily since yesterday. He remembered how the melting flakes had trickled down from Aline’s dark cloak. “It must be cold and deep by now,” he thought. “I wish to Heaven that I were lying beneath it! Perhaps I shall be soon.” He went to his desk, drew out writing materials, and began to write steadily. Half an hour passed in this occupation, when he was suddenly startled again by the loud alarum of the door-bell. The harsh clang pealed through the house discordantly. He pushed back his chair and hurried out into the hall. “It grows late. Who can be coming now?” he said.