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. CHAPTER LV. A look of bitter pain came over Mr. Delaney’s handsome face at those words from Mr. Rodney’s lips. “Who could have been so cruel, so wicked?” repeated the lawyer. And then Mr. Delaney answered: “One to whom I owed a debt of gratitude, and who caused me to pay the heaviest price man ever paid for a like debt.” “I do not understand you,” said Mr. Rodney.