“_He_ thinks that gold can pay me for all that I have suffered--for all I suffer now!” she breathed, with bitter sarcasm. As she stood there in her long white dressing-gown, with her loose dark hair falling heavily over her shoulders, Mr. Delaney came out with his cigar. It was the first time that Aline had been visible at the window since she had returned. Usually she sprung back from sight at the moment of his appearance. A new mood came to her now. She stood there calmly, holding the paper in her hand, and fixing her gaze steadily upon the darkly handsome, brooding face visible under the wide-brimmed hat. He did not see her at first, but at length the angry intensity of her gaze seemed to draw his eyes upward by some subtle fascination. In a moment he saw her standing there, pale, proud, angry, holding his letter in her clinched white hand. Even at the distance at which he stood, he could see the angry flash of the deep violet eyes as they steadily regarded him. Her gaze held his a moment as if trying to pour all the wrath that filled her being into his inner consciousness, then-- Even while he still regarded her with his dark, soulful eyes in mute inquiry, she lifted her hands and tore the pleading letter into fragments, that fluttered swiftly from her hands and fell down into the garden among the winding paths. It was her only answer to his prayer. When the last white strip had fluttered from her disdainful fingers, she removed her magnetic gaze from his, stepped backward, without word or sign, and dropped the white curtain between them. CHAPTER XXIX. Mr. Lane, the New York detective, who had so ignobly failed in the search for Aline Rodney, did not easily recover from that unprecedented defeat. He was acute, wary, and intelligent, with a boundless stock of patience and persistence, and these qualities had always insured him success in all his undertakings. Failure was a new experience with him. He chafed under it. He could not understand it. If pressing business matters had not recalled him to New York, he would have persevered indefatigably for months in the effort to find the missing girl. It was not in his nature to give up a quest easily. Only the stress of circumstances had induced him to give up this one. When he had thrown it over and returned to New York, it weighed on his mind. He hated to own himself conquered. Amid the stress of other pursuits, he often recalled the case in which he had been defeated. He would shut his eyes amid the din and noise of the city, and recall the quiet country town that had been the scene of such an unfathomable mystery. He did not like to think that he, who had worked up the most difficult cases in the great cities, had been completely baffled by a simple slip of a girl in a country town that, with all its pretentiousness and its exclusive society, was scarcely better than a village.