Sworn to silence

“I see his dainty cottage Beyond my garden bowers, High o’er it, tall and stately, My shadowing mansion towers; But my neighbor’s Rose of roses Is sweeter than my flowers.”

She tried to summon a smile to her lips, but they only quivered instead. Spite of her innocent propensity for getting into trouble, Aline was very sensitive. The ludicrous side...

When she had set foot in the garden and he came back to her, he was honestly surprised. He had thought her a precocious child of thirteen. Here was a tall girl up to his shoulde...

As those wild, unearthly cries rang through the house, Oran Delaney stood for a moment like one rooted to the floor. His face had whitened to the ghastliness of death, a smolder...

She was lying on a downy, rosewood couch, with draperies of pale blue silk and snowy lace, in the center of a large and high-ceiled room hung with azure silk, the elegant rosewo...

“I do not mean to punish you, Miss Rodney. On the contrary, I am exceedingly sorry that I cannot grant your wish,” he said. “But there are reasons--” he paused abruptly, and did...

Aline was so indignant at the gentle force Mr. Delaney had used in compelling her to swallow the physician’s prescription that she angrily resolved not to submit to its influenc...

“Answer me,” exclaimed Aline, in her sharp, imperious young voice. “What was it that struck me with that blood-stained dagger yesterday? What was it I heard shrieking like a los...

She had a very tender heart, this little willful heroine of ours, and although she thought that she hated Oran Delaney she would not willingly have seen him suffer. She saw that...

“No, but you talk like one,” she cried out, petulantly. “Do you really imagine that you can keep my presence here a secret from my own people? Do you not know that they will sea...

The strange and perfectly unaccountable manner of Aline Rodney’s disappearance from her home had excited a great sensation in the town of Chester. Such a harrowing mystery had n...

A tall, decidedly handsome man rose to meet Effie as she glided into the pretty little parlor with that stately grace that her admirers called so queenly. He waited with a court...

“A mysterious thing,” he repeated. “I was closing my office at eleven o’clock that night, preparatory to going home, when, in the darkness, a stranger touched me upon the should...

“A heavy door opened to admit us into the wide, dimly lighted hallway of what must have been a large, aristocratic mansion. Here the eccentric stranger removed the handkerchief...

Mr. Rodney did not wait for Dr. Anthony to return to Chester. His anxiety was too great. He drove over to Maywood in the early morning to see the young physician.

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 showe...

The long, sweet summer days glided past into September. Already the parti-colored leaves of autumn began to be whirled through the air by the cool sweet breeze. There were hints...

It was the figure of a girl wrapped in a long black water-proof cloak, whose concealing hood, fallen back from her features, showed them pale as death, with a pallor more remark...

“No more willfulness, Aline,” he said, almost sternly. “You have run away from us and caused us a great deal of anxiety and sorrow. You have almost broken my heart, and your mot...

Mr. Rodney gazed at his daughter for a few moments in blank silence. It had suddenly dawned upon him that, with all her childish ways and innocent young beauty, Aline was a woma...

His tenderness and love had given place to fierce anger and authority. His face was pale and stern, his lips set in a rigid line, his dark-blue eyes, so like her own, blazed omi...

She was regarding him with some little curiosity. It was quite plain to be seen that she had not the faintest idea of the nature of that cost at which he vaguely hinted. There w...

Mr. Rodney paused when he had uttered those words and looked gravely at his daughter. She had not quite taken in his meaning yet. She was looking at him with an air of blended s...

They were startled and frightened. This was twice that her senses had yielded to unconsciousness that night. The strong, bright, pretty Aline who had left them three months ago...

She was shocked when he put the truth before her in so plain a fashion. She did not know herself how strong a vein of incredulity ran through her painful thoughts.

They found her pale, calm, and more beautiful than ever, for she had gained a certain quietness and repose of manner that became her to a charm. There was a softer tone in her v...

A wild hope had sprung into her mind that Mr. Delaney had sent her an answer at last, although she could not understand why he had done so through the medium of Mr. Linton.

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...

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...

Marriages were not much in Mr. Lane’s line. He was forty and a confirmed old bachelor--at least that was what his friends said and what he said himself. He had never put his nec...

The sweet, high pitched voice reached every ear in the room distinctly. Every one was surprised at the assertion; but they saw that Aline had forgotten herself, and all were wis...

He stood silently gazing at the windows where the light had so strangely flickered and disappeared with almost the swiftness of a flash of lightning. He was full of wonder over...

No invitations had been issued for the marriage, but the church doors had been thrown open for the accommodation of those who cared to attend. When the bridal party entered the...

Mr. Lane felt rather proud than otherwise as he walked up the aisle of the church with Aline Rodney by his side. Her exquisite beauty filled him with admiration, and he had alre...

Mr. Lane was anxious to find out if Aline was acquainted with the stranger who had made her blush in the church. He watched his chance, and when the family were discussing the c...

“Aline, will you come down to the river and skate this morning? The ice is ten inches thick, and as smooth as glass,” said Max Rodney to his sister the morning after Effie’s mar...

“What an old hag! Her hands were coarse like a man’s and her voice too!” cried vivacious Max. “It was no kind of a fortune, either. She did not say anything about your marrying....

It was an act of heroic daring that appealed to all, even to hearts less brave. A cry rose up from the shore, a shout of admiration for the hero’s bravery, a cheer to give him c...

The good soul was sitting by the comfortable stove in the commodious kitchen of Delaney House, intent upon the concoction of some savory broth that was simmering on the stove. I...

A shiver of mortal cold and terror rushed over her as the icy current came in contact with her warm, tender young body. She went down, down, down, with a swift rush and a terrib...

It was the morning after Aline’s almost fatal accident, and she was sitting up in an easy-chair before the fire, in a pretty, bright blue wrapper. She was very pale and quiet. S...

Aline had attempted to rise from her seat, but her extreme weakness forced her to grasp the back of her chair with both hands. She clung to it tightly, leaning against it while...

Mr. Rodney regarded his daughter with a disappointed and baffled air. He had set a trap to surprise all the details of her secret from her, deeming it no harm to do so. But she...

Again a disappointed and baffled expression crossed Mr. Rodney’s fine face. He was cruelly tortured by this dreadful secret that lay, like a great, inky blot, on the fair fame o...

“But, papa, I do not want to be married,” she exclaimed, with such a childish air of dismay and surprise that he could have laughed if he had not been so miserable. “I do not wa...

The dark, handsome face had a worn and weary expression. It was pale, too, and the dark eyes were dim and heavy. His head rested wearily on a crimson satin cushion, and one hand...

If the solid earth had parted beneath Oran Delaney’s feet, he could not have been more surprised than he was at those words from Aline Rodney’s lips. He did not answer, only sta...

It was the strangest question Oran Delaney had ever heard from a girl’s lips. He said to himself that Aline Rodney’s simplicity was simply matchless. If she had been reared with...

He had been face to face with a great temptation, and he had mastered it by the strength of an indomitable will. But the great drops of sweat beaded his white brow as he sunk in...

It was exactly what Oran Delaney was prepared to hear. Nay, he would have been disappointed if the proud, noble looking man before him had not made that passionate, determined a...

When the retreating footsteps of his neighbor had died in the stillness of the night, Oran Delaney closed and locked the door against the outer darkness and returned to the libr...

Mr. Rodney did not pause to see the result of his maddened deed. He threw the smoking pistol far from him, sprung over the body of his prostrate victim, and rushed up the stairs...

The maniac fire-fiend had fired the filmy lace curtains and the blaze ran along the inflammable material, licking it up with a fiery tongue of flame and mounting to the ceiling...

It was a strange mockery of fate that had thrown Oran Delaney, wounded and helpless, beneath the roof of the man whom he had injured, and who had wounded him near unto death.

“I did not suppose you would. My reference was too obscure. I will make my meaning more clear,” said Mr. Delaney. “When I first went on my travels abroad, I met in France a nati...

“After a short time and without any further solicitation on my part, he consented to allow me to consider the beautiful Julie my _fiancée_, but only on condition that we never m...

“I would sooner have died than have wronged your willful, innocent child, Mr. Rodney,” he said. “When she came into the garden that day I had no thought but her pleasure. She se...

Mr. Rodney was thinking too. He remembered the night that Aline had come home. All that was strange in her manner then was explained away now. He remembered how hard and stern h...

“I love her,” he repeated. “She won my heart in the three months while she stayed in Delaney House. At first I thought her a spoiled willful child, whose sharp tongue and determ...

The old physician looked at him, curiously. The dark, handsome face was grave, and there was a settled sadness on it. But the tone, more than the words, struck the physician. A...

Dr. Anthony was most anxious to meet Oran Delaney when they told him the story of all that had transpired while he and Effie were absent upon their bridal tour.

The early winter eve was falling drearily when Dr. Anthony went out of the room, and left Oran Delaney alone, watching the dark shadows that already began to creep about the cor...

After that one cry of surprise and wonder, Oran Delaney could not utter another word. He stared speechlessly at the fair vision that had arisen, as it were, between him and the...

He had felt that he was slowly dying; he knew that the physician and all the others thought so, too. He had not cared for it. He had rather exulted in the thought, for he had gr...

It looked very pleasant and cozy in the sick-room, with the curtains drawn and the bright fire. Aline sat down in the easy-chair Mrs. Griffin wheeled forward for her, and was qu...

Mrs. Griffin had slipped out of the room quietly with her tray of empty dishes a moment before. They were alone. Aline shivered a little. He looked so wan and ill, what if he sh...

“I will do just what papa tells me,” said Aline, trustingly, and an eager light of joy gleamed in Oran Delaney’s eyes. He fancied that Mr. Rodney would be kind to him--that he w...

“No, no, you are mistaken. I can detect some signs of life yet. It is only a deep swoon. Let all leave the room except the nurse and myself, and let the attending physician be s...

The wintery day was fading into darkness. Mrs. Griffin had slipped out for the tea and toast again, and Mr. Delaney lay among his snowy pillows, gazing thoughtfully into the bri...