“Yes, I thought so,” said Oran Delaney, echoing the sigh. “I saw that she was willful and a trifle wild, but I thought nothing of it. She was too young and fair to be worldly-wise. Poor child, would that she had been! She had never then entered the fatal portals of Delaney House.” “Fatal indeed!” groaned the afflicted father. “I blame myself that I let her enter there,” said Oran Delaney. “The child must have charmed me, for I forgot my usual prudence and allowed myself to be pleased in her happiness. She ate her lunch with me, then, frightened at the flight of time, left me and ran out into the hall to go home. It was then that the accident happened to her.” Mr. Rodney listened with painful interest. “While she was going though the hall,” continued Mr. Delaney, “a series of horrible shrieks saluted our ears from the upper hall. Horrified at my carelessness I bade Aline fly home, and I rushed up the stairs to confront the dangerous maniac. I met her in the upper hall, arrayed in all the splendor of her wedding-robes, with a flashing dagger in her hand and fury flashing from her eyes. She rushed at me with a murderous shriek, and before I could disarm her she had thrust the keen point of her dagger into the fleshy part of my arm. The keen pain threw me off my guard a moment, and in that moment the would-be murderess escaped me and flew down the stairs. Heedless of my wounded arm, I followed her, but was just one minute too late. Just as I reached her, she had pursued Aline through the deserted parlor, and the poor girl fell across the threshold wounded in the breast by the maniac’s dagger. I came up to them just in time to arrest the second descent of the blade. Mrs. Griffin came to my assistance, and together we disarmed Julie, and locked her into her room again.” He paused, drew a heavy sigh, and then continued: “Then my folly and selfishness began. I knew that I ought at once to apprise Aline’s parents of her accident, and yet I also knew that to do so must be to disclose the hidden secret of my deformed and maniac bride to the world. My morbid self-consciousness shrunk from it. I felt that I could not endure the ordeal. Hastily, and without counting the cost to the victim of Julie’s dreadful mania, I decided upon my course. I removed Aline to a comfortable chamber, and Mrs. Griffin attended upon her faithfully. I went to Maywood and brought Doctor Anthony to see her. He did not consider the wound dangerous, so I did not have him renew the visit. I considered it too hazardous to my secret. You may well look at me reproachfully, Mr. Rodney. I can understand now how culpably I acted, but then my conscience was deadened within me by my sensitive horror of the world’s finding out my bitter secret.” Mr. Rodney had no words to answer him. He sat listening in painful silence.