“Yes, I know best,” she answered, with a sort of passionate anger in her clear, young voice, “I know best, and I tell you I despise that money, so given! I despise the donor! I will never touch one cent of it! I trample upon it! Base money, were it piled as high as the stars, could never recompense me for my blighted life and lost hopes! Tell Mr. Linton he may tell his generous patron to take back his sordid wealth! Tell him that honor is dearer than gold!” Mr. Rodney replaced the package carefully in his breast-pocket. “Very well, dear, I will return these to Mr. Linton, if you are quite sure you are acting for the best?” he said. “You may be quite sure, papa, that your daughter could not act otherwise than I have done in this matter,” she replied, with decision. And she arose and left the room hurriedly, leaving her untasted dinner upon the plate. Then they discussed the affair in all its phases. They concluded that Aline was enveloped in a most baffling mystery. “Could Mr. Linton tell you nothing?” inquired Mrs. Rodney. “Nothing at all. He said the transaction was a _bona fide_ one. All legal matters were carefully observed. He received the money in genuine bank bills of a large denomination, but of the mysterious investor he could tell me nothing. He shrouded himself in a thick veil of mystery. Linton was himself most curious over the matter.” “It is very strange,” said Mrs. Rodney, and they all echoed her thought. It was very strange, all of it. This new development only added interest to Aline’s secret. An air of romance was thrown around it by the offer of that large sum of money. What terrible wrong had Aline sustained, and why was she offered this as a recompense? Of one thing the Rodneys had become convinced. Dr. Anthony’s story of the wounded girl in the blue room was not a fiction. Mrs. Rodney had furtively examined her daughter’s breast while she slept, and she had found the scar of a wound upon it. Her heart had swelled with bitter anger toward the merciless wretch who had hurt Aline. She longed for vengeance, but she was powerless to do anything in the face of this tormenting mystery. CHAPTER XXVIII. Aline ran away to hide herself in her room in a flurry of mingled emotions. This was the way in which Oran Delaney had answered her pleading letter. Not a line, not a word, only a shower of gold flung at her feet, as if this could make up to her for all she had lost, for the pleasures that belonged to her youth, for the love that ought to bless her womanhood, for the worldly respect and applause that she had forfeited so innocently and rashly. She threw herself down into a chair and buried her face in her hands. Stifled sobs shook her frame, and bright crystal drops fell through her fingers.