“Your suspicions are tending in quite the wrong direction,” he said: “Dr. Anthony is quite sure that the house where he saw the wounded girl is quite five miles distant from here.” It was a curious yet so natural mistake that all had drifted insensibly into it. Dr. Anthony had said that he was carried at least five miles from Maywood to the mysterious mansion. No one had reflected that Maywood was five miles distant from Chester, or if they had it did not connect itself at all with the mystery of Aline’s disappearance. No one except the keen-witted detective dreamed for an instant of connecting Delaney House with the mystery, and his suspicions were at once diverted by his employer’s confident remark. He turned his attention at once to another subject, and gave up the vague idea. Delaney House was destined to hold its secret yet. “With one black shadow at its feet, The house thro’ all the level shines, Close-latticed to the brooding heat, And silent in its dusty vines; And ‘Ave, Mary,’ was her moan, ‘Madonna, sad is night and morn;’ And ‘Ah,’ she sung, ‘to be all alone, To live forgotten and love forlorn.’” Mr. Lane gave his closest attention and best talents to the solution of the mystery, and he felt perfectly confident of success. When had he, the most able detective in the great city of New York, failed in any undertaking? It was not likely he should be foiled here in this little country town. He settled himself at the pretentious hotel as an invalid gentleman in search of health. He had his own private buggy sent down from the city, and he made solitary excursions into the surrounding country in quest of the Goddess of Health, as he pretended. Sometimes he varied the monotony of these trips by going afoot. No one suspected his real reasons for being in the town. He passed everywhere for that which he represented himself to be. Weeks came and went, and he was no nearer the solution of the mystery, no nearer the finding of Aline than when he first came to Chester. A baffled feeling began to grow upon him, but still he would not own himself defeated, would not give up the quest. It was quite impossible that he should fail, he told himself, inspired by the natural self confidence of one who has always succeeded. Some day he would be sure to find the aristocratic mansion with the beautiful blue room where the wounded girl was hidden away from the yearning hearts of those who loved and mourned her. CHAPTER XVI. Aline Rodney possessed a very quick and passionate temper. She had been very injudiciously spoiled by her father, and very injudiciously punished by her mother. The result showed itself in a willful capricious temper that could not bear contradiction and restraint.