HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1886-6-25, Page 22 THE BRUSSELS POST
tWORF TO SILENCE'
on,
ALINE RODNEY'S SECRET.
117. F1RSI. ALEX. 1rjeYdSYGI1 11111.[.1,Y111,
AaTnen O1
w I,n "rel Vane? e Lady Gay's l'rldof'
pts., etc.
"If you please, sir," she replied in-
differently.
"It is a check -book and a certificate of
deposit in the Chester Bank of the sum
of ten thousand dollars," he replied,
with sparkling eyes, and watching boa
closely to see how she received tho news,
Sho showed nothing but a blank sur-
prise.
"Ten thousand dollars! But what
has that to du with me, papa?"
"Everything, Aline, for it is all yours,"
he replied.
"Mine 1" she exclaimed.
"Yes, yours !" he replied,
"But, papa, I do not uuderstand it
at all," she said, when some of the ex.
pressrons of amazement had ()eased
around the table. "I have no money at
all, you know, and I do not think you
have ton thousand dollars of your own.
So how can it be mine?"
"It is yours by the free gift of some
person unknown, Aline, wbo has placed
it at your disposal hi the bank."
"Oh, dear, who could it have been 2"
cried Mrs. Rodney, while Effie and Max
looked the image of silent amazement.
"I am sure I do not know," Mr.
Rodney replied. "Can you guess who
it was, Aline?"
"Na, papa," she replied.
He was watching her closely, as he
had fallen into a habit of doing since
she had come home. There had been
a look of wonder on her face at first,
but she had scarcely spoken before it
was replaced by a sudden look of com-
prehension. A deep, betraying blush
overspread her face, and showed him
that she knew.
Aline, aro you quite, quite sure ?" he
asked.
"Of what, papa ?"
"That you have no knowledge of the
person who placed the money in banir
to your account ?" he replied.
The hot blush burned deeper in her
face. She put up her fair, cool hands
to hide it. Sho was silent a moment,
and then she lifted her dowy, violet
eyes frankly to his grave face.
"Papa, I will not speak falsely to
you," she said. "I think—I could guess
who tho porsou—might be ?"
"Weil, dear?" ho said interrogatively.
Sho understood the stifled pleading
in his yoiee. The blue eyes fell sensi-
tively.
"You see, papa, I am only guessing—
I am not euro,' she explained, tremu-
lously.
"Am I to have the benefit of your
surmise, my child?" he asked.
"Papa, forgive me," she pleaded; "I
cannot tell you."
"Tell me this," be said : "Was it the
person who bound you to silence ?"
"Perhaps eo—I caunot tell," she
answered, reluctantly.
She was very guarded. He saw that
it was useless to press her.
"Shall, you accept this munificent
gift, Aline?" ho asked.
A sudden flash of scorn and anger
leaped into the blue eyes, her lip curled.
She took' np the unopened package,
reached across the table, and Laid it be-
side him.
I shall not accept it!" she replied,
with bitter brevity.
IIe was disappointed. Ten thousand
dollars would have been so much to her
and to them all. They might have
taken it and gone away from this place,
where the finger of scorn was pointed
at them for her fault. They might
have made themselves a new home, far
away from the tongues of scandal that
were busily wagging against them here
But he did not press her.
"You know best, my dear," be said,
simply.
"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 1
T despise the donor 1 I will cover touch
ono cent of it 1 I trample upon it 1
Base money, were it piled as high as the
stars, could never recompense mo for
my blighted life and lost hopes ! Tell
Mr. Linton he may tell his generous
patron to take back his sordid wealth !
Toll him that honor is dearer than gold!"
Mr. Rodney replaced the package
carefully iu bis breast -packet,
"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 untested dinner
upon the plate. Then they discussed
the affair in all its phases. They con -
eluded that Aline was enveloped in a
most balding mystery.
"Could Mr. Linton tell you nothing ?"
inquired Mrs. Rodney.
"Nothing at all. 11e said the trans.
action was it Leta., 'ide ono. All legal
matters were carefully observed. Ho
received tho 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 him-
self most curious over tho matter."
"It is very strange," said Mrs,
Rodney, and they all echoed het
thought. It was very strange, all of it.
This new development only added in.
forest to Aline's secret. An alt of
romance was thrown around it by the
offer of that large sum of money. Whet
terrible wrong had Aline sustained, a>AA
why was she offered this as a r000m-
pouso?
Of one thing the Bodnoys had bo -
come convinced, Dr. Anthony's story
of the wounded girlie the blue room was
not afictiou. Mrs. Rodney bad furtively
examined her daughter's breast while
she slept, and she had found the soar of
a wound upon it. Her heart had
swolled with bitter anger toward the
merciless wretch who had hurt Aline.
Sho longed for vengeance, but she wee
powerless to do anything in the face
of this tormenting mystery,
CHAPTER XXYIII.
Aline ran away to hide herself in het
room iu a flurry of mingled emotions.
This was the way in which Oran Do.
lanoy 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 iu.
nocently and rashly,
She throw herself down into a chair
and buried her face in her hands. Stilled
sobs shook her frame, and bright crystal
drops foil through her fingers.
Sho felt as if she hated Oran Dela.
nay. Ile was cruel and heartless, she
said to herself, indignantly. \irhat did
she care for money? Sho had her
youth and beauty, her tender heart,
her desire for the pleasures of life.
With all this heritage of youth she
could have had happiness enough if
only—if only she had not lost that fair
fame, that open record of life without
which all else availed her nothing.
She wept bitterly for this terrible mis-
fortune that had fallen upon her. Sho
was young and beautiful and pure, but
a groat, horrible, inky blot had fallen on
the whiteness of her life, and she could
never wipe it out by the words of expla-
nation that would have cleared away
the hideous stain. People believed ill
of her. Women° especially young and
fair ones like herself, passed her by
with sneers and averted faces, She
was as innocent and as spotless as they
were, but no one would believe it. Be-
cause she would not satisfy their cnrf.
osity they believed she was a sinner.
There was ono text that every one took
and preached from. It was this :
"Where there is secrecy there is guilt."
By this standard Aline was judi,ed
and condemned. The fierce rebellion
of her heartagainst this unjust sentence
availed her nothing. The world's code
was many hundreds of years older than
she was. It said in so many words :
"A woman's life must be like au open
book, that every eye may read. If
there is even oue leaf folded down, one
page the world may not scan, thenthere
is a shameful secret written ou it."
There was one leaf folded down in
the book of her life. It was as pure a
record as any other; it only recorded
the punishment that had come to her
for her girlish wilfulness and folly. But
no one would believe it. She cried out
against the hardness and wickedness of
the world that could so misjudge her.
"The world must bo full of wicked-
ness, or people would not be so ready to
believe evil," she said.
The hardest part of her trouble was
that her family were compelled to bo
sharers in her disgrace. Because they
had taken her home again, because they
would tell nothing of her absence, people
were very angry with them, too. They
were all under ban alike.
"My beautiful Effie, it is too bad that
this shadow should rest upon her life—
she who was always so much admired
and beloved 1" she sighed over and over.
"Ah, me, if I only could speak 1"
But the iron fetters of her vow chafed
and hurt her. There was no going back
on that solemn pledge of silence. She
might beat her wings as she would
against the bars that held her, but there
was no escape for her, no release from
her sorrow. Sho could have exclaimed
with the poet :
"EdIdleeand adihy song
It seemed to her little less than an in-
sult to offer her money to console her
for the cureless wound that had laid
desolate her life. She said to herself
that sho would have to be reduced to
beggary—ay, that she would starve on
a crust in tho street before she would
tench a cent of Oran Delaney's money.
He had refused her oven a word—he
had thrown her his gold like a bone to a
dog. Well, she would let him see that
she would never touch it. She would
die first, she said to herself, in her pas-
sionate pride and resentment.
So the days passed by. It was little
more than a week before the news of
the money in the bank for Aline became
disseminated far and wide, thanks to
the gossiping tongue of the genial Bank.
or Linton. The busy tongue of scandal
wagged afresh over this delicious tid-
bit.
opinions were divided over Aline's
course. There were some wbo said that
she should have accepted the money,
that was doubtless offered to her in repa-
ration for wrong that had been done her.
This class thought that she was very quix-
otic in refusing, and even very foolish.
The money would have done her a vast
deal of good. Sho might have gond
away somewhere with it, and matte
herself a new home where the story of
hor mysterious absence was not known.
Decidedly she had anted foolishly in
refusing, said those wiseaores.
There was another class who found
Aline's action rather admirable. They
argued that if the girl had suffered
wrong at the hands of any one, mere
money could not repair tho injury done,
They applauded her spirit in declining
such atonement. This new element of
romance added fresh fuel to the flame
of scandal. It was considered that the
rase against Aline - cuito T'r'ren
0.910193.4949.114.94,
WAY, Inc Wuu ttual,l give her ten tonna,
and dollars unless to condone an irrepa-
rable wrong ?
Aline was none the wiser for their
praise or blame. Neither ono ponds,
tratod to her quiet cottage home, Day
after day dragged itself wearily along,
and a dreary, apathetic calm began to
settle down on the ;rl, Shu had loot
heart and Lope, and given herself up to
despair,
She rose from her sleepless bed one
morning, and went to the window and
drow back the curtain, and looked at
the dreary morning tilty stretching chill
and cold over all the land. It was gray
and sunless like her life, she thought,
wearily, and dropped her eyes and
sighed heavily.
The down -dropped oyes suddenly fell
ou a bit of paper lying outside the win.
clow on the narrow sill and hold down
by a piece of gravel. It was addressed
to herself in a strong, masculine hand,
and Aline's heart beat quickly as ohs
lifted the sash and drew it iu.
"At last," she said, as she hurriedly
tore it open and ran her pager eyes over
the clear, bold chirograpny.
Ouly a fow Hues, hurried and Moo.
hermit as icor own had boon, but strong
and earnest like the writer:
"Aline, you refused the money be-
cause you guessed that I had sent it,"
ran the brief note. "Oh, for God's
sake, take it, child, and believe that it
is your own as the gift of a heart that
bleeds because it has wronged you, and
because it can make no other atonement
than what lies in sordid gold. Lot your
father take the money and make a new
home for you all in some distant city
where this unmerited persecution may
not follow you, and where you may
have all the social pleasures due to your
youth and beauty and innocence. Take
the money and use it. It is only your
due, and I shall never forgive you if
you continue to wilfully refuse it.—D."
Sho ran her oyes slowly over the
brief note twice. It only excited her
auger and contempt. She said to her.
self that he was a coward, strong man
as ho was, to make a weak girl suffer
for the sake of that hidden secret he
guarded so jealously. Oh, that she
had never taken that oath of silence
upon her girlish lips I
Row grim and gray and frowning the
towers of Delaney House appeared in
the dull, cold light. All the years of
her girlhood it had been a pleasure to
her to watch the mysterious mansion,
with the picturesque ivy creeping about
and covering the grim hard angles and
small -paned windows with beauty.
She had watched the sunset lighting
its windows with splendor every oven-
ing; she had gazed upon the beautiful
garden with rapturouSedelight ; she had
speculated ofteu, with girlish curiosity,
over the motives that made Oran Dela-
ney an alien from his kind, shut up in
that gloomy hoose, and but seldom
seen in the streets of the town. It
had not always been thus. Ten years
ago, before Oran Delaney went abroad,
and before the Rodneys came to live in
Chester, he had been friendly, genial,
social, mixing freely with the best so-
ciety of the town on his annual visits
from college, and was liked and admired
by all. After his father's death he had
shut up the old family mansion and
gone abroad. He had remained away
several years, and returned to his home
a strange and altered man. Ho no
longer sought society, he did not visit
nor receive visits, he gave no invitations
and accepted none. He seemed to have
become an inveterate recluse, and re-
mained isolated in the lonely mansion,
haunted by the ghosts of his dead and
gone ancestors, perhaps, for there were
rumours of strange sounds and blood-
curdling shrinks heard by day and by
night by those who passed his home.
Aline had heard all these tales from the
townsfolk, and her girlish interest had
been strongly roused. Yet how little
she had dreamed of the subtle influence
Delaney House and its strange master
would exert upon her life 1
She held the note in her fingers, and
gazed dreamily at Delaney House,think-
ing, with a shudder, of the strange, hor-
rible, unearthly creature hidden within
its walla, and of the long days of illness
and sorrow she had suffered from the
creature's rude assault.
"He thinks that gold can pay me for
all that I have suffered—for til I suffer
now 1" she breathed, with Litter sar-
casm.
As she stood there in her long white
dressing•gown, with her loose dark bair
falling heavily over her shoulders, Mr.
Delaney came out with his cigar.
It was the first time that Aline had
bcou visible at the window since she
had returned. Usually she sprung back
from sight at the moment of his appear-
ance.
A new mood came to her now. She
stood there calmly, holding the paper
in her hand, and Axing 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 amused to, draw his eyes upward
by sono subtle fascination. Iu a mo-
ment ho saw her standing there, pale,
proud, angry, holding his letter in her
clinched white hand.
Even at the distance at which be
stood, he could sop the angry flash of
the deep violet oyes as they steadily
regarded him. Her gaze bold his a
moment as if trying to pour all the
wrath that filled her beteg into his
Meer oonaciousness, and then—
Evan while ho still regarded her with
his dark, soulful eyes in mute enquiry
she lifted her hands end torn the plead-
ing letter into fragments, that fluttered
swiftly from her hands and fell down
into the garden among tho winding
paths. It was hor only answer to his
prayer. When the last white strip had
fluttered from her disdainful fingers,
she removed her magnetic gazo from
his, stepped backward without word or
JUNE til, [SSG.
-a91.,.,19019.10,01, scaxancancmcnemzensmarmanassmarcenanerragarematneartg
I:TTIRON AND IIItIG1
Loan & Investment Co.
This Comptilly is Loaning Money
on Farm Security at r,owll r 11ATEs
of Interest.
M01iTUAe.I S PUEC1tASEL .
SAY:INNS BANK 111tANCf1.
3, 4 and 11 per cont. Interest Al-
lowed on Deposits, according to
1llloullt and time left.
Osmics:. --On corner of Market
Square and North attoet, Goderieh.
Horace Horton,
11IANAGER'
Goderieh ,Aug .6th ,18811
MONEY TO LOAN.
11FFJI 1pnante eau o•, ares , rolertp at
LOWEST RATES.
PRIVATE ANC COMPANY FUNDS
W. B. DloxsoN,
Solicitor,
Brussels, Ont.
Money to Loan.
PRIKITD -FUJVDS.
$20,000
of Pr,vatepundsllavej ustbeen placed in
myhandsfor Investment
AT 7 PEE CENT.
Borrow ors can hay etheirloanseomplcte
in three de.) s if title's satisfactory.
Apply to E. E. WADE.
G1TlST01k TAILt)IIING,
The undersigned begs leave to intimate
to the public that he has opened a tailor
shay in the (iarliuld House. block, over
I'owell's store, where he is prepared to at.
tend to the wants of the publics in cutting,
fitting and mocking clothing in the latest
and most fashionable styles. My long ex-
periolloc togrther with a course of inslrtm-
tion under one of the best cutters in'Ponlu-
to is a guarantee of being able to do satin.
factory work. Satisfaction guaranteed. IC.'
36-3m 0. ,t. Blahs.
1\ j0N1':Y TO LEND.
Any amount of Money to Loan on
Farm or Village property at
C,
& Cz PER CENT. YEARLY.
Straight Loans with privilege of
repaying
laying when required. Apply
to
A. II11NTER,
Division Court Clerk, Brussels.
BRUSSELS PUIIP WORKS.
The undersigned begs to inform the public
that they have manufacturecl and ready
for use
PUMPS OF ILL VINOS,
WOOD a IRON.
Cisterns of
Any dimension.
GATES Cr ALL SIZES.
CLOTHES REELS
of a superior construction. Txantina our
stuck before purchasing elsewhere. A Call
solicited. We are alio Agents for
cDouggall's Celebrated Windmill.
Wilson & Pelton,
Shop Opposite P. Scott's Blacksmith fihop.
1'. S.—Prompt attention paid to all re-
pairing of Pumps, Sc.
LISTOWEL OWE WOOLEN MILLS.
i-isISTOWI 1. WOO is ties 1Y117
l,`/'1RRZA WIRAZTTM
r.,
iesM
CID
ate.
For the Season 1886. Cash Paid.
I am propared to pay the highest cash price for good fleece wool delivered at the Lis-
towel Woolen Mille. Having beau eleven years in business here, it has always been cuy
endeavor to pay higher than the market allows, and in the past years have paid city
market prices. Wool being so low in price, it will afford me pleasure to pay the highest
price going. In exchanging wool for goods will allow a few cents more. Will also guar-
antee to sell my goods at Cash prices. I don't havo two prices—cash and trade—my
rule is one price only. Running the year round enables me to oarry 0 largo stock. This
year having a larger stock than usual, will offer you
The lest Stock of Tweeds in the Dominion to choose ,from. Double and
Ttcisted Full Cloths, Flannels, Blankets, all Goods of
the Newest ctncl Latest Designs.
Como early with your wool sod you will find us ready and willing to give you our
best attention. We will be bappy for you to Llspect Goods and Prices before disposing
of your wool. I remain, yours respectfully,
-R. DF'- ..1=3/R.,001‹.
e
IrNAL
OLLE ILLS,
131 --USS 1� 1Z8, O1\T6I'.
CHANGE •' F PROPRIETORS.
Having leased the well known and splendidly equipped Roller Flouring
Mill frons Messrs. Wm. Vanatono & Sons for a term of years, we desire
to intimate to the farmers of Huron Co. and the public gollee'ally
that we incrprepared to turn out the best brands of Flour, look after
the Gristing Trade, supply any quantity of Bran, Chopped stuff, &c.,
and buy Any Quantity of Wlleat.
The hill is, recognized as ono of the host in the County and our long
experience in this business gives us confidence in saying we guarantee
satisfaction,
Flour and Feed Always on hand,
i 'Gristing and Chopping promptly attended to.
A CALL SOLICITED.
Stewart & Lowick/
PROPRIETORS.