At Mrs. Desmond's kindly-spoken words, Celine heaved a deep sigh and remained silent. The lady glanced up at her in some surprise.
"What is the matter, Celine?" she inquired. "Do you not think I am right to acknowledge my appreciation of her valuable services?"
The maid only sighed more deeply, casting down her eyes as if in great distress.
"I hope you are not jealous, Celine," continued her mistress. "You know I have given you many such testimonials of my favor."
"Yes, that you have, and I'm not jealous—not a bit, dear mistress," cried Celine; "but, oh, dear, oh, dear! that you should have been so cruelly deceived and betrayed."
"Celine, what do you mean?" asked the lady, disturbed.
"Oh, my dear lady, I hate to grieve you, but I can't bear to see you imposed upon any longer by that shameless girl! Oh, my dear mistress, where are your eyes that you can't see her disgrace? Oh, how I wish I had told all I knew at first!" cried Celine, wringing her hands, while tears fell from her eyes.
Mrs. Desmond sprang up and caught her by the arm excitedly.
"Speak! What is it that you know?" she cried, passionately. "Have I been deceived in Mary Smith?"
"Yes, my dear lady—most cruelly deceived!" exclaimed Celine.
"But she has certainly been kind to the child. Else Ruby would have complained," said Mrs. Desmond in perplexity.
"Oh, yes, she was kind to the child, I admit, but it was all for a blind. And all the—all the while—oh, Mrs. Desmond, if you could only understand without my telling it," cried Celine, breaking off abruptly, with an appearance of grief and reluctance.
The passionate, jealous heart of the listener caught the artful bait instantly.
She gasped for breath, her brilliant face whitened to a marble pallor, and she caught at the back of a chair to steady herself.
If Celine had not been utterly selfish and pitiless she must have retracted her cruel lie in the face of that utter despair on the beautiful face of her mistress. But the greed of gold overpowered every other consideration in her base mind.
"Celine," the startled woman broke out, "do you mean to say that—my husband——" she paused, and her blazing eyes searched the woman's face.
"Your husband loves her—alas, yes, my poor, deceived mistress," cried the maid. "The deceitful creature has won his heart from you."
There was a moment's silence while Mrs. Desmond groped blindly in her mind for some tangible proof on which to pin her faith in her beloved husband.
"Celine, you must be mistaken," she exclaimed. "You know we have been away from home almost the whole time since the girl came to us. She has had no chance with my husband."
"Alas, Mrs. Desmond, you force me to tell you," sighed Celine. "Know, then, that it all began before you went south to Mr. Chesleigh. The very day after she came I caught Mr. Desmond kissing Mary Smith, with his arms around her waist."
"Celine, will you swear to this?" gasped the unhappy wife.
"I will take my Bible oath to its truth," was the emphatic reply.
"Then God help me," moaned the stricken woman. "Celine, why did you not tell me all this before?"
"I was afraid of master's anger," she replied. "He threatened me and I promised not to tell. Oh, my dear lady, will you promise to shield me from his wrath? I could not see you so imposed on any longer."
"So the affair has been going on from bad to worse, Celine?" inquired her mistress, faintly.
"Yes, my dear mistress. You remember how anxious he was to return to New York and take little Miss Ruby to the seashore. It was all an excuse to get back to the nurse. And since we came back yesterday—well, I've told enough already. Are you angry with me, my dear, injured lady?" inquired Celine breaking off, artfully, just where she really had nothing more to tell, unless she had fabricated a wholesale lie.
Mrs. Desmond shook her head and remained silent. The maid was disappointed. She had expected a wild outpouring of anger from the jealous wife, but instead she preserved an ominous quiet.
Her head drooped on her bosom, her face was colorless as death, her wild, burning, dark eyes were the only signs of life in her.
Celine was a little startled at the effect of her wickedness. She brought someeau de cologne, and tried to bathe the face of her mistress but was quickly motioned away.
"Go, Celine, send that girl here to me," she said, speaking in a dry, hard, unnatural voice.
The maid went out, and Mrs. Desmond waited but a moment before the door unclasped and little Golden entered. She paused in the middle of the room, and said in her gentle voice:
"You sent for me, Mrs. Desmond?"
Mrs. Desmond lifted her eyes and looked at the beautiful girl whom she believed to be the wicked destroyer of her happiness. Golden shrank before the withering scorn of that look.
"Oh, madam, is anything the matter?" she faltered.
Mrs. Desmond rose and towered above her in all the dignity of her insulted wifehood.
"Oh, no," she said, in a low, deep voice of concentrated passion, "there is very little the matter—only this trifle. You have shamelessly robbed me of my husband."
"Madam!" cried Golden, in alarm and consternation.
"You need not pretend innocence—you cannot deceive me," cried the outraged wife. "You have won his heart, you have stolen him from me, and you have forever ruined my life."
"Oh, madam, who has told you this dreadful tale? It is not true. I would sooner die than wrong you," cried Golden, with pitiful earnestness.
"Hush, do not lie to me," exclaimed Mrs. Desmond, lifting and pointing a scornful finger at the shrinking form. "Your looks declare your shame. Go, leave the house this moment wretched creature, before in my madness I lay violent hands on you!"
But Golden did not go. She knelt down before her angry accuser, and looked up at her pleadingly.
"Oh, Mrs. Desmond, you are mistaken! You wrong me bitterly by such a suspicion!" she cried, with the tears streaming down her fair cheeks.
"Wrong you!" Mrs. Desmond cried, "are you not then——" she bent and fairly hissed the remaining words into the girl's ear. Golden threw up her hands with a cry of dismay.
"Oh, my God, this is too horrible!" she wailed, "how can I bear it?"
"Did I not speak the truth?" Mrs. Desmond demanded.
"It is true, madam, I cannot deny it," replied the girl, crimson with burning blushes, "but I—oh, I call Heaven to witness my truth, Mrs. Desmond, I am nothing to your husband, I was—was—married before I came to you."
"Then where is your husband?"
"I cannot tell," faltered the white lips.
"That is strange," said Mrs. Desmond, scornfully. "Has he left you?"
"Yes, madam," with a pitiful droop of the fair head.
"Why did he do so?" inquired the lady
"I cannot tell you," Golden murmured, sorrowfully.
Ah, if Mrs. Desmond had only known the truth, that it was her brother's wife kneeling there ashamed and dejected before her. But she did not dream it, and her anger rose at the girl's unsatisfactory replies to her questions.
"I will not ask you any more questions," she said, "I do not wish to hear more of your weak falsehoods. Get up from there, and go. Leave the house now and at once, before I publish yourconduct to everyone. You need not go to Mrs. Markham for sympathy. I shall go to her at once and tell her what you are."
Golden stood still, staring at her blankly a moment. She was dazed and frightened at the shameful suspicion that had fallen upon her, and she did not know how to convince Mrs. Desmond of her innocence.
"Oh, madam, if I could only induce you to believe that I am not the vile creature you think me," she cried in anguish.
"Hush; leave the room!" Mrs. Desmond answered stormily. "Go, and take with you the bitterest curse of an injured woman. May the good God speedily avenge my cruel wrongs!"
She crossed to the door, threw it open, and pointed silently to it.
Golden obeyed the mute sentence of her lifted finger and glided out, a forlorn, little figure, feeling almost annihilated by the vivid lightning of Mrs. Desmond's angry eyes.
The door slammed heavily behind her, and she walked along through the brightly lighted hotel corridor, for the twilight had fallen long ago.
The rain was falling heavily, and Golden shrank and trembled at the thought of encountering the black, inclement night. The thought came to her—why should she go?
She was ill, friendless, almost penniless. It was her husband's right to protect her.
And here she was passing his very door. Should she not appeal to him for comfort in this terrible hour?
Her trembling limbs refused to carry her past his door. She turned the handle with a weak and trembling hand and stepped over the threshold.
When Golden on the impulse of the moment had entered the room that she knew was Bertram Chesleigh's, she stood frightened and trembling inside the closed door, afraid to look up at first at the man who had treated her so cruelly.
Gathering courage at the shuddering remembrance of the terrors that awaited her in the darkness of the gloomy night outside, she looked up at last, determined to make at least one appeal to her husband.
The gas had been lighted and it threw a flood of brightness over every object in the room.
On a sofa at the further end Bertram Chesleigh lay sleeping in a careless position, as if he had just thrown himself down, wearied and overcome with fatigue.
The jet-black hair was tossed carelessly back from his high, white brow, and the thick, dark lashes lay heavily upon his cheeks, as if his slumber was deep and dreamless.
A small table was drawn closely to his side, littered with writing materials, and a pen with the ink scarcely dried upon it, lay beside a letter just stamped and sealed, and addressed to:
Richard Leith.No. —— Park Avenue, New York.
As Golden glided across the room, and paused, with her small hand resting upon the table, the superscription of the letter caught her eyes by the merest chance. She started, caught it up in her hand and scanned it eagerly.
"Richard Leith," she read, and her voice trembled with eagerness. "How strange! Why is he writing to Richard Leith?"
She glanced at the sleeper, but not the quiver of an eyelash betrayed disturbance at her presence.
She drew a slip of paper toward her, and neatly copied the address from the letter, placing it securely in her little purse.
Then she paused, turning another wistful glance from the letter which she still held in her hand, to the pale, handsome face of the husband who had discarded her because she had been born to a heritage of shame.
She wondered again if Bertram Chesleigh knew Richard Leith, and why he had written to him, but no thought of the truth came into her mind, or how gladly she would have flown to the quiet sleeper and folded him in her loving arms, and sobbed out her gladness on his broad breast.
Instead she stood gazing at him a few moments in troubled silence, the tear-drops hanging like pearls on her thick, golden lashes, her breast heaving with suppressed sighs.
Then she turned and went out of the room, her first impulse to awaken him having been diverted into another course by her opportune discovery of the address of the man whom she believed to be her father.
"Bertram would only despise and defy me if I appealed to him, perhaps," she murmured, "I will seek my misguided mother instead."
She gave him one sad, reproachful glance and hurried out of the room.
As she closed the door it inadvertently slammed and awakened the sleeper. He started up, confusedly passing his hand across his brow, and looking up for the person whom he supposed had entered the room.
"I distinctly heard the door slam," he said to himself. "Someone either entered or left the room."
But as no one appeared, he concluded that someone had entered, and finding him asleep, had gone out again.
He crossed to the door and looked out into the lighted corridor.
No one was visible, and he was about to close the door again, when his sister Edith came suddenly in sight.
He waited until she came up to him, her dark silk dress rustling as she moved hurriedly along.
"Come in, Edith," he said. "I am sorry I was asleep when you came in just now. Why did you not awaken me? I was only dozing. The closing of the door awakened me instantly."
She looked up at him in surprise, and then he saw that her brilliant face was quite pale, and her dark eyes had a strange, unnatural glare in them.
"I have not been in your room since morning," she replied. "What made you think so, Bert?"
"Someone must have come in and gone out again, for I wasawakened by the closing of the door, and I thought at first it must have been you. Doubtless it was only a servant. It does not matter. But, Edith, has anything happened? You look pale and strange."
She threw herself down into a chair, and her unnatural calm gave way to a flood of tears.
Mr. Chesleigh was shocked and distressed. He bent over her and entreated her to tell him the cause of her grief.
Checking her tears by a great effort of will, Mrs. Desmond told him all that had passed.
"I will never live with Mr. Desmond again," she said, passionately, when she had finished her story. "Ever since we married he has outraged my love and my pride by his glaring flirtations, but this last affair is too grievous and shameful to be tamely endured. I hate him for his falsehood and infidelity, and I will never live with him again!"
"Edith, think of the scandal, the notoriety, if you leave your husband," he remonstrated.
"I do not care," she replied, her dark eyes blazing with wrath and defiance; "let them say what they will; I will not tamely endure such a cruel insult! You must make some arrangement for me, Bertie, for I will never, never live with Mr. Desmond again!"
And Bertram Chesleigh, with his heart on fire at his beloved sister's wrongs and his brain puzzled over the best way to right them, little dreamed that his own weakness and wrong-doing had been the sole cause of her sorrow. His fiery indignation was spent upon his brother-in-law when it should have been bestowed upon himself.
"I will not go in to bid little Ruby farewell," Golden said to herself sadly, as she left the room of Bertram Chesleigh. "The little one loves me and I could not bear her grief at parting with me. I will slip into the next room without her knowledge, get my hat and jacket, and go away quietly. When I am gone, perhaps Mrs. Desmond may become reconciled to her husband."
She did not dream that the proud woman's anger and resentment against her husband would carry her to the length of a separation with him.
She donned her hat and jacket, and tied her few articles of clothing into a compact bundle. Taking them in her hand, she stole noiselessly out, and made her way to the lower portico of the great hotel.
She paused there, a little dismayed, and looked out at the black and starless night with the chill September drizzle falling ceaselessly. She would be obliged to walk two miles through the storm to take the midnight train for New York.
It would have been perfectly easy to have hired a conveyance but she had only nine dollars left in her purse after discharging her debt to Mrs. Markham, and not knowing how much her fareto the city might be, she was afraid to waste a penny in hack hire.
She decided that she must walk, so, unfurling her small sun-umbrella as some slight protection against the beating rain, she plunged with a shiver into the wet and darkness of the untoward night.
She groped along wearily in the dreary road, scarcely conscious of her physical discomfort and peril in the agonizing pain and humiliation that ached at her heart. She had been driven forth under the ban of cruel shame and disgrace.
Bertram Chesleigh would hear the story of Ruby's wicked, deceitful nurse, and would hate her memory, little thinking that it was his own wretched wife, and that she had borne Mrs. Desmond's angry charge without defending herself, and all for his sake, because he was too proud to acknowledge her claim on him.
The weary walk was accomplished at last, and Golden waited several hours in her wet and draggled garments in the fireless room at the station for the train that was to take her to New York.
It came at last, and in a few more miserable hours she was safe in the city. She found, after paying her fare, that she had enough left to pay for a bed and breakfast at a hotel, and gladly availed herself of the privilege.
Wretched and impatient as she felt, her overstrained mind yielded to the physical weakness that was stealing over her, and she slept soundly for several hours. Rising, refreshed and strengthened, she made a substantial breakfast and sallied for No. —— Park Avenue. She hardly knew what she would do when she arrived there, but the conviction was strong upon her that she must go.
She had no difficulty in finding the number. The house was large and elegant, with a flight of brown stone steps in front. Golden climbed them a little timidly, and rang the bell.
The servant in waiting stared at her cheap attire a little superciliously as he opened the door, but when she inquired if Mrs. Leith were at home his aspect changed.
"Oh, you are come in answer to the advertisement for a maid," he said. "Yes, my mistress is at home, and she will see you at once. Come this way."
Golden followed him in silence to the lady's dressing-room. The thought came to her that this would be an admirable pretext for making the acquaintance of the Leiths, so she did not deny that she was seeking a situation.
A beautiful, golden-haired lady opened the door at her timid knock. The girl's heart gave a great, muffled throb.
"My mother," she thought.
"Mrs. Leith, this is a young woman who has answered the advertisement for a maid," said the man, respectfully, as he turned away.
The beautiful lady nodded Golden to a seat, and looked at her with careless condescension.
"What is your name?" she inquired.
"Mary Smith," answered the girl in a low, fluttering voice.
"Have you any recommendations?"
"Not as a maid, as the occupation is new to me. I have been a nurse heretofore, but if you will try me I will do my best to please you," said Golden, anxiously.
"I am very hard to please," said Mrs. Leith.
She did not tell Golden that she was so very hard to please that no one could suit her, leaving her to find that out for herself, as she would be sure to do if she remained.
There was a moment's silence, and Golden gravely regarded Mrs. Leith. She waspetiteand graceful in form, with large, blue eyes, waving masses of golden hair, and beautifully-moulded features. She was barely thirty years old in appearance, and was richly and becomingly attired.
Yet Golden shivered and trembled as she regarded the fair, smiling beauty. How could she look so bright and careless with the brand of deadly sin upon her? There was neither sorrow nor repentance on the smiling, debonair face.
"And this is my mother," Golden thought to herself, with a strange heaviness at her heart. "She seems utterly indifferent at her wickedness. Ah, she little dreams that the poor babe that she deserted so heartlessly is sitting before her now."
Mrs. Leith's light, careless voice jarred suddenly on her mournful mood.
"Well, I will try you, Mary, for I need a maid. My last one was so incapable I had to discharge her. You may do my hair for me now. I am going to drive in the park with Mr. Leith, if his troublesome clients do not detain him. My husband is a lawyer, Mary, and his time is almost wholly engrossed by his business."
"Her husband," Golden repeated to herself, as she wound the shining tresses into braids. "So they keep up that farce before the world. Poor mother! how she must love my father to remain with him on such humiliating terms. Is she really happy, or does she only wear a mask?"
But there was no apparent sorrow or remorse on the complacent face of the lady as she gave her orders and directions to the new maid.
The uppermost thought in her mind was how to make the most of her beauty.
Golden had to arrange her hair twice before she was suited, and she tried several dresses in turn before she decided on one. She was inordinately vain and fond of finery, and Golden thought pitifully to herself:
"Her beauty is the only hold she has on my father, and she is compelled to make its preservation the sole aim of her life."
She wondered a little that no yearning throb had stirred her heart at the sight of her beautiful mother, but she told herself that it was simply because her mother's sin had wholly alienated the natural affection of her purer-hearted daughter.
She pitied her with a great, yearning pity, but no impulse prompted her to kiss the dewy, crimson lips, she had no temptation to pillow her head on the fair bosom that had denied its shelter and sustenance to her helpless infancy.
Mrs. Leith did not look as if she would have made a tender mother.
"Have you any children, madam?" she asked, suddenly, and Mrs. Leith answered:
"No," rather shortly, but added a minute later: "And I am glad of it, for I do not love children. But Mr. Leith does, and is rather sorry that we have none."
"He is justly punished for his sin," thought his unknown daughter, while she secretly wondered why he had never claimed the child his wife had heartlessly deserted to return to him.
"Perhaps she told him I was dead," thought Golden, looking at the beautiful woman with a strange thrill of repulsion. "Perhaps he would have loved me and cared for me, had he known I lived."
A thrill of pity, half mixed with tenderness, stirred her heart for the father who had been cheated of the child he would have loved.
She became conscious of a burning desire to meet her father—the man who had wronged her mother, and who had been wronged in turn, in that he had never beheld the face of his child.
There was a manly step at the door, and it opened, admitting a tall, handsome man in the prime of life.
Golden's heart gave a quick, wild throb, then sank heavily in her breast.
She retreated hastily to the shade of a window-curtain, where she could observe the new-comer, herself unobserved.
Richard Leith was tall, dark, and very handsome, though there were iron-gray threads in his dark, waving hair, and in the long, magnificent beard that rippled down upon his breast.
He looked like a man who had known trouble and sorrow. His face was both sad and stern, and his dark eyes were cold and gloomy.
Mrs. Leith looked up at him carelessly, and his grave face did not brighten at the sight of her beauty, enhanced as it was by the rich, blue silk, and becoming white lace bonnet with its garland of roses.
"Are you ready for your drive, Mrs. Leith?" he inquired, with punctilious politeness.
"Yes, I am just ready," she replied, carelessly. "You see I have a new maid; she is rather awkward, but I shall keep her until I can do better."
Mr. Leith gave an indifferent nod toward the gray gown and white cap that was dimly visible at the furthest corner of the room, then he went out with his wife, and Golden sank down upon the carpet and wept some bitter, bitter tears, that seemed to lift a little bit of the load of grief from her oppressed bosom.
After all, she had found her father and mother, and it was possiblethat she might bring them to see the wickedness of their course, and to seek reformation.
She determined not to reveal her identity just yet.
She would stay with them a little and learn more of them before she made her strong appeal to them in behalf of truth.
She would not reproach them just yet for the blight they had cast on her innocent life. She would patiently bide her time.
It was a strange position to be placed in.
Under the roof of her own parents, unknown and unacknowledged, with her whole life laid bare and desolate through their sin.
A hot and passionate resentment against them surged up into Golden's wounded heart.
What right had her mother to be so fair and happy when she had sinned so grievously?
Perhaps she would be very angry when she knew that the child she had so pitilessly deserted had hunted her down to confront her with her sin.
"I will wait a little. I will not speak yet," she said. "I shall know them better after awhile, and I shall know how to approach them better."
So the days waned and faded.
Golden began to become very well acquainted with the beautiful woman whom she believed to be her mother. She was vain, frivolous, heartless.
The pure-hearted girl recoiled instinctively from her. But she could not understand Mr. Leith so well.
He was a mystery to her. Some settled shadow seemed to brood heavily over him always.
He was engrossed with his studies and business. Golden wondered if it was remorse that preyed so heavily on him. She had never seen a smile on the stern, finely-cut lips.
There was one thing that struck her strangely, Richard Leith and his so-called wife did not appear very fond of each other. The gentleman was studiously courteous, polite and kind, but Golden never saw on his expressive face that light of adoring tenderness she had loved to see on Bertram Chesleigh's whenever he looked at her. Mrs. Leith was totally absorbed in her dresses, her novels, and her daily drives, during which she excited much admiration by her beauty and her exquisite toilets. But love and passion—these seemed to be worn-out themes between the strangely-mated pair. They addressed each other formally as Mr. and Mrs. Leith, but Golden had noticed that the lady's clothing was marked "G. L." She knew, of course, that the letter G. stood for Golden, but when she asked her about it with apparent carelessness one day, the lady answered that it was for Gertrude.
"She has discarded even her name," her daughter mused bitterly. "Perhaps she has even forgotten her old home and her deserted father and her little child."
And in spite of herself Golden felt that she heartily despised the woman whom she should have loved in spite of all her faultsbecause she was her mother. But some strange and subtle fascination drew her nearer and nearer to Richard Leith.
Her anger and scorn which she had tried to foster at first began to dissolve in spite of herself into a yearning and sorrowful tenderness.
Several weeks went by, and Golden wondered very much if the Desmonds had returned to the city, and if the lady still held her unjust suspicions and jealousy against her.
She often wondered as she looked at Richard Leith's stern, set face, why Bertram Chesleigh had written to him, and for what object.
One day she heard Mrs. Leith remark to her husband that she had seen Mr. Desmond driving in the park alone that morning.
"He looked pale and dejected—quite unlike himself," she added, "I wonder if his handsome wife and little daughter are at the seaside yet."
"Did you not know," said Mr. Leith, "Mrs. Desmond and Ruby have gone to Europe with Chesleigh."
"Gone without her husband," cried the lady. "How strange! Do you not think so?"
"Not strange when you hear the circumstances," Mr. Leith replied, gravely. "The truth is Mrs. Desmond became violently jealous of a pretty servant girl, and declared she would leave him—even threatened a divorce. To save publicity her brother persuaded her to take a trip with him to Europe, hoping that time might soften her anger. You understand that these are not public facts, Mrs. Leith. They came to me personally as the Desmonds' lawyer."
"I shall not repeat them," she replied, taking the gentle hint, good-humoredly. "Do you think she will ever be reconciled, Mr. Leith?"
"I scarcely think so. Mrs. Desmond is perfectly implacable at present. Mr. Desmond employed me as a mediator between them, but I could accomplish nothing. He swears that she was unjustly jealous, and that there was nothing at all between him and the girl. But I could not induce Mr. Chesleigh nor his sister to believe the assertion."
"What became of the girl?" inquired Mrs. Leith.
"Mrs. Desmond drove the wretched creature away. It is not known what became of her," replied the lawyer; "altogether it is a very sad affair. Chesleigh has acted on my advice in taking his sister out of the country for awhile. I pity Bertram Chesleigh. He has had a bad entanglement himself lately which he has been compelled to place in my hands. But, poor boy, I fear I can do nothing for him."
"He is trying to get a divorce from me," thought Golden, with a dizzy horror in her mind, and the bitter agony of the thought drove the color from her face, and the life from her heart. With an exceeding bitter cry she threw up her arms in the air, staggered blindly forward and fell heavily upon the floor.
"What is that?" cried Mr. Leith, looking round with a great start.
"Why, it's Mary Smith! I had forgotten that she was in the room," cried Mrs. Leith. "Oh, look, she is dead!"
She began to wring her hands excitedly, but Mr. Leith said quietly:
"Do not alarm yourself. She has only fainted I suppose. Bring some water and we will soon revive her."
She ran into the dressing-room, and Mr. Leith bent down over the prostrate form and lifted the drooping head compassionately.
The ugly, concealing cap and glasses had fallen off, and as his gaze rested fully on the lovely, marble-white face, a cry of surprise and anguish broke from his lips.
"My God, how terribly like!" he muttered. Then, as Mrs. Leith returned with water andeau de cologne, he applied them both, without the slightest success, for Golden still lay cold, white and rigid, like one dead, upon his arm.
"Is she dead?" Mrs. Leith whispered, fearfully.
"I cannot tell. Ring for the housekeeper. Perhaps she may know better how to apply the remedies," he replied, still holding the light form in his arms, and gazing with a dazed expression on the beautiful, unconscious face.
The housekeeper came, and declared, in a fright at first, that the girl was dead. Then she turned Mr. Leith out of the room, loosened Golden's clothing, and rubbed her vigorously.
In about ten minutes the quiet eyelids fluttered faintly, and a gasping sigh parted the white lips.
The housekeeper beckoned Mrs. Leith to her side.
"She lives," she whispered, softly, "but she had better have died."
"I do not understand you," Mrs. Leith replied.
"I have made a discovery," continued the old housekeeper. "The girl has deceived you, madam. She is a bad lot, for all her sweet, childish, innocent face."
"Deceived me—how?" Mrs. Leith demanded.
"She is not an innocent maiden, as she appeared. Oh, Mrs. Leith, can you not see for yourself? The wretched creature is likely to become a mother in a few short months."
"You are jesting. She is barely more than a child," Mrs. Leith broke out, incredulously.
"It's the Lord's truth, madam. Faugh! the wicked little piece! A pity I hadn't let her die!" sniffed the virtuous housekeeper, with a scornful glance at the reviving girl.
Mrs. Leith drew back her trailing silken skirts from contact with poor Golden's recumbent form as if there were contamination in her very touch.
"I have been terribly deceived," she said, "I had begun to like the girl very much. She suited me more than any maid I have had for a long while, and I thought her quite pure and respectable.Do the best you can for her, Mrs. Brown, for I shall send her away as soon as she is able to walk."
Heedless of Golden's large, blue eyes that unclosed and fixed themselves reproachfully upon her, she swept from the room and sought Mr. Leith, to whom she confided the housekeeper's discovery.
The grave-faced lawyer looked shocked and distressed, unaccountably so, the lady thought.
"I can scarcely credit it," he said. "She has such an innocent and child-like face."
"Such faces are sometimes deceiving," remarked the lady. "This instance proves the fact."
"What do you intend to do with the poor child!" Mr. Leith asked, with an unconscious sigh.
"I shall send her away, of course," Mrs. Leith replied, decidedly.
"Oh,cruel, unnatural mother!" said a faint, reproachful voice, behind her.
She turned with a start and saw that Golden had followed her.
The poor child stood trembling in the doorway, her dress in disorder, her beautiful hair broken loose from its fastenings, and streaming over her shoulders, her great, blue eyes blazing like stars in her lovely, pallid face, her sweet lips curled in scorn as she pointed her finger at Mrs. Leith, and exclaimed:
"Oh, cruel, unnatural mother! Is your life so pure that you can afford to sit in judgment on me?"
"Is the girl mad?" Mrs. Leith exclaimed, recoiling from her.
"No, I am not mad, although my wrongs have been bitter enough to madden any human being," Golden retorted, passionately. "I am not mad, although your terrible sin has ruined my life and broken my heart."
"Mysin,mine!" retorted Mrs. Leith, in apparent bewilderment. "What do you mean, girl? I am nothing to you!"
"Nothing to me, oh, my God," moaned Golden, wringing her white hands. "Then you deny that you are my mother?"
"Yourmother, girl, when I have never had a child in my life. Mr. Leith, do you not see that the wretched creature is raving mad?" cried the lady, retreating to his side apprehensively.
Golden turned her flashing blue eyes on the white, startled face of the man.
"She denies that she is my mother," she said. "Perhaps you will deny that you are my father."
She saw a quiver pass over the man's pale face.
"I do not understand your words," he replied, in a voice shaken with emotion. "Explain yourself."
"I am the child Golden Glenalvan deserted at Glenalvan Hall in its helpless infancy, that she might return to New York and lead a life of shame with you," she cried out bitterly.
Richard Leith's dark eyes turned on her face with a lurid gleam in their shadowed depths.
"Hold!" he cried. "Whoever you are, you shall not malign the memory of poor, little Golden. She was pure as the snow."
"Pure!" the girl repeated, blankly. "She was never your wife. They told me she lived with you in open shame."
A startling change came over the face of Richard Leith. There was a glare, like that of madness, in his eyes.
He fell backward into a chair, and the labored breath came from between his parted lips in strong, shuddering sighs.
Mrs. Leith flew to his side, and bent anxiously over him.
"Mr. Leith, what is it? What does all this mean? I am mystified," she cried.
His heavy, dark eyes full of sorrow and despair, lifted gloomily to her wondering face.
"It means," he replied, "that I have had a secret in my life, and that the time is come for you to know it. If this girl speaks truly she is indeed my daughter, though not yours."
"Not hers!" echoed Golden, in bewilderment, as she looked at the beautiful woman whom she had for long weeks believed to be her mother.
"Not hers," he replied, "for long before I met and married this lady, little Golden Glenalvan was dead."
A startled cry came from Golden's lips.
"Dead," she shuddered; "no, no; you are deceiving me."
"Not so, as God is my judge," he replied. "But sit down, child, and tell me all your story. Then we may be able to understand each other."
Golden glanced half-fearfully at Mrs. Leith, who stood leaning against her husband's chair, pale and silent, and anxious-looking. The lady quietly and gravely motioned her to a seat.
She thankfully obeyed the gesture, for she felt ill and weary, and the sudden shock of learning that her mother was dead, had been a terrible one to her, and had almost stricken her senseless again.
In low, pathetic tones, and with many tears, Golden told Richard Leith all that she knew of her mother, and as much as she could of her own lonely life, without revealing the tragic story of her unfortunate love.
He listened in silence, although she could see that he was terribly agitated.
His white brow was beaded with great drops of sweat, his eyes stared wildly, he bit his lips till the blood started to keep back the groans of pain.
When she had finished he went over to her, knelt at her feet, and gently kissed her cold, little hand.
"You are my daughter," he said, "and you are the living image of your mother. But until this moment, little Golden, I believed you dead. I wrote to John Glenalvan when my wife ran away from me, and asked him if she had returned to her father. He wrote back that she had done so, that she had given birth to a little daughter, and that the mother and child had both died. Then he added his curse, and threatened, if I ever came near Glenalvan Hall, to shoot me down like a dog."
His voice broke huskily a moment. Golden looked at him eagerly.
"You said your wife," she faltered. "Was my mother, then,legally married to you? Am I not a——" her voice broke huskily over the word, "a nameless child?"
"Your mother was my legal wife, little one. You are my own daughter, born in lawful wedlock. God only knows what crafty and wicked enemy of mine wrote that lying letter to my poor, young wife, telling her that I had deceived her by a mock marriage. She was too credulous, and believed the lie too easily. It was not true. I can give you every proof that your mother was my lawful wife, little Golden."
She fell on her knees, and with upraised hands and streaming eyes, thanked God for those precious words.
Her mother had been pure and noble. There was no shadow of stain on her daughter's birth.
Then, with a sudden, startling thought she confronted him, her white hands clasped in agony, her voice ringing wild and shrill:
"John Glenalvan told you that my mother died. He lied! She disappeared very suddenly the night after I was born, and that villain declared that she had deserted me and returned to her sinful life with you. She did not die, and she did not return to you. Oh, my God, where is she now?"
She saw that terrible question reflected on her father's face.
It whitened to the awful hue of death, and he reeled backward like a smitten man.
A faint cry came from Mrs. Leith, who had dropped heavily into a chair.
"Oh, Heaven, if she is yet living, what, then, am I?"
Richard Leith went to her side, and looked down at her white, scared face, pitifully.
"Gertrude," he said to her gently, "we have both been the victims of a terrible wrong. When I married you several years after the loss of my first wife, won by your beauty, which reminded me of my poor, little Golden's, I honestly believed that she was dead. There is some terrible mystery here, and John Glenalvan is at the bottom of it. But I will wring the truth from his false lips, and if my lost little Golden has come to harm at his hands, his life shall pay the penalty of his sin!"
"Oh, father," cried little Golden. "Why did you lure my poor mother from her home. She was so young, so trusting. Why did you persuade her to desert her parents?"
The man's pale, handsome features quivered all over with vain remorse and penitence.
"You do well to reproach me, little Golden," he sighed. "There is no excuse for my sin. But I will tell you how I came to act so imprudently.
"I was a struggling young lawyer, poor and proud, when I first met your beautiful mother during a business trip to the south. Her family, though reduced to comparative poverty by the late war, were proud and aristocratic people, and I felt quitesure that they would have refused me the hand of their petted darling.
"I had heard so much of the pride of the southerners that I was afraid to ask the Glenalvans for their beautiful child. So I acted the part of a coward and stole her from them. The dear girl loved me well, and went with me willingly when I promised to take her back to them after we were married.
"I took her to New York, and made her my true and lawful wife, but so afraid was I of those haughty Glenalvans that I refused to allow her to write my name and address to her friends. I was waiting till I should have acquired a fame and fortune that would make me acceptable in their eyes. Oh, God, how terribly my sin has found me out after all these years."
He paused and wiped away the cold dew that beaded his high, white brow. After a moment he went on, sadly:
"I was fast gaining prominence and a competence in my profession, when some base enemy of mine—as a lawyer I had some of the blackest-hearted enemies that a man ever had—wrote my darling a letter, defaming me in scandalous terms, and averring that I had deceived her by a mock marriage.
"Poor child, she was very simple and credulous. She fell an easy victim to the liar's tale. She fled from me, leaving that cruel letter behind her, the only thing there was to hint at the reason of her hurried flight."
"Oh, if only you had followed her then," moaned beautiful Golden.
"If I only had!" he echoed. "My first impulse was to do so; but I had on hand a very important case, which I had staked everything on winning. If I managed it well my success was assured as one of the leading lawyers of the day. My speech for the defense was anticipated anxiously by many. So I suffered my ambition to overrule my first instinctive resolve to follow my wife, and instead I wrote to her brother. He sent me that lying letter that almost broke my heart."
He broke down and sobbed like a woman, or rather, unlike a woman, for those great, convulsive moans of agony that issued from his breast seemed as if they would rend his heart in twain.
Golden stole to his side and laid her small hand kindly on his gray head, that was bowed in sorrow and remorse.
"I am sorry for you, my father," she said. "You have been weak and imprudent, but not sinful, as I thought. But, oh, my poor mother! My heart is torn over her wretched fate. She must have perished miserably, or we should have heard from her ere now. Oh, father, what shall we do?"
They looked at each other with dim, miserable eyes, this strangely reunited father and daughter, the awful mystery of the wife and mother's fate chilled their hearts.
He took her hand and drew her gently nearer to him.
"My child, I shall go to Glenalvan Hall and confront John Glenalvan with his sin. I believe the whole key to the mystery lies in that villain's hands."
"I am almost sure of it," she replied. "He hated my mother, and he hated me. I will go with you. What joy it will be tostand up proudly before him and tell him that my birth was honest and honorable, and that my father is a good and true man, who is glad to see me, for youareglad, aren't you?" she asked him, pleadingly.
"Yes, dear, I am very glad. I have always longed to have a child of my own to love. It seemed as if my heart was always yearning for the daughter I believed to be dead. But Golden," he looked at her anxiously and pleadingly as he clasped her little hand, "you have a story of your own to tell me before we go on the quest for your mother. The great mystery of love has come to you already in your tender youth. Tell me, my daughter, are you a wife?"
The crimson color flushed into her cheeks, then receded, leaving her deathly pale again.
Tears rose into the great, blue eyes, and trembled on the long-fringed lashes.
Her lips parted and closed again without a sound.
"Tell me, Golden," he urged, anxiously; "are you a wife, or has some artful villain deceived you? If so——" he clenched his hand, and the lightnings of passion flashed from his somber, dark eyes.
A moan of pain came from the girl's white lips.
"Oh, father, I cannot tell you now," she sighed. "Only trust me. Do not believe me vile and wicked. Perhaps I may be able to tell you the truth some day."
As she spoke, some strange, new light flashed into his mind.
She saw the startled gleam flash into his eyes.
"Tell me," he cried out, hoarsely, "are you the girl that was dismissed from Mrs. Desmond's employ under the stigma of a disgraceful suspicion?"
She covered her face with her hands and faltered "yes," in a voice of agony.
"Was that terrible accusation true?" he demanded, in a voice so changed she could scarcely recognize it.
"No, never! It was false, I swear it before Heaven. My trouble came to me before I entered Mrs. Desmond's employ," she replied.
"Golden, you must tell me the name of the man who has wronged you," he said, sternly.
"I cannot," she answered, sorrowfully.
"You mean you will not," he said.
"I cannot. I am bound by a promise," she answered.
"It was a foolish promise. The time has come when you must break it," he answered, steadily. "You must clear yourself in Mrs. Desmond's eyes, and reconcile her to her husband. Do you know that they are separated on your account?"
"I heard you say so," she replied.
"It is true, and I am their lawyer. Will you let me write to Mrs. Desmond, and tell her the name of the man who is really in fault, and for whose sin she has deserted her innocent husband?"
"I cannot," she moaned again, in a voice of agony. "I am bound by a sacred promise. Bitter as the consequences are, I must keep it!"
It seemed incredible to him that this frail, slight girl should hold her secret so resolutely in the face of the trouble it had caused.
"But, Golden, think a moment," he began.
"I have thought until my brain is almost wild," she interrupted, pitifully. "But I can see no possible loophole out of my solemn vow of silence."
"You were wrong to take such a vow, Golden, and it is almost wicked for you to keep it. Do you see how much is at stake? Through your silence a man and his wife are divided in anger and shame, and a cloud of the blackest disgrace is lowering over your own head. Do you know that it is a fearful thing to come between husband and wife?"
"I feel its enormity in the very depths of my heart," she replied, shuddering and weeping.
"Then surely you will speak; youmustspeak," he urged.
But she only shook her head.
"Not if I command you to do so?" he asked.
"Not if you command me," she replied, with mournful firmness.
There was a moment's silence, and Richard Leith gazed upon the girl with a sick and shuddering heart.
A vague suspicion was beginning to steal into his mind.
What if Golden was deceiving him, and Mrs. Desmond's belief were true?
He reeled before the sickening horror of the thought. The dread suspicion seemed to float in fiery letters before his eyes.
He looked at the bowed figure of the sobbing girl, and steeled his heart against her. She was no child of his if she could let the shadow of suspicion tamely rest upon her head.
"Golden," he said, "think of what I must endure if you refuse to declare yourself. Would you have me acknowledge a child who has covered my honorable name with shame? Shall I take you by the hand and say to the world that honors me as a stainless man: 'This is my daughter. She has disgraced herself, and brought ruin and despair into another's home.'"
She shrank and trembled before the keen denunciation of his words. She threw herself at his feet and looked up with frightened, imploring eyes.
"Father, do not disown me," she cried. "I have not disgraced you—you will know the truth some day. Tell the whole world my piteous story. It may be—it may be that the telling will bring you joy, not sorrow. For," she said to her own heart, hopefully, "if Bertram Chesleigh should hear the truth, and know that I am not a nameless child, surely he will claim me then. He can no longer be ashamed of me."
She felt that the happiness of her whole future hung trembling in the balance on the chance of her father's recognition of her. If in his anger at her obstinacy he should repudiate her claim on him, nothing was left her but despair.
Richard Leith could be as hard as marble when he chose. His pride and his anger rose in arms now against the thought of receiving this branded girl as his own daughter.
"Golden," he said, "what if I say that I will not receive you as my daughter unless you consent to clear up this disgraceful mystery that surrounds you?"
"You will not tell me so—you could not be so cruel," she cried, fearfully.
"Only one word, Golden. The name of the man who has wronged you. Tell me, that I may punish him."
"You must not, forI love him," she moaned, despairingly.
"You force me to believe that Mrs. Desmond was right, and that you are a lost and guilty creature," he said scathingly.
A long, low wail came from her lips, then she bowed her head and remained silent.
"Do you still persist in this obstinate silence?" he asked.
"I must," she answered faintly.
"Go, then," he thundered at her, "you are no child of mine. I refuse you the shelter of my home, my name, and my heart. I cannot believe that you are the child of my innocent little Golden. Go, and never let me see your face again."
And with the cruel words he turned and left the room.
Little Golden stared at the closing door through which her father had vanished, with blank, terror-filled eyes. To have found him and lost him like this was too terrible.
She sat gazing before her like one dazed, with the angry words of her father still ringing in her ears, when a low and fluttering sigh recalled her to the fact of Mrs. Leith's presence which she had forgotten for the moment in her anguish of soul.
She looked around shrinkingly at the fair woman who had taken her mother's place, and her mother's name, dreading to meet a glance of scorn, even transcending that which her father had cast upon her.
Instead she met the beautiful, troubled eyes of her step-mother fixed upon her with tenderest pity.
Mrs. Leith had been vain, careless, and frivolous all her life. She had never known a care or sorrow in the whole course of her pleasant, prosperous existence.
The hard crust of selfishness and indifference had grown over the better impulses of a nature that at the core was true, and sweet, and womanly.
The last hour with its strange revelations had been the turning point in her life.
She realized with a shudder the dreadful position in which she was placed. She was married to a man who, in all probability, had a wife living.
It was possible that she herself was almost as much an outcast as the wretched girl who crouched weeping on the floor, homeless, friendless, and forsaken, in the hour of her direst need.
Never before had Mrs. Leith been brought face to face with a real sorrow. She gazed wonderingly upon poor little Golden, thecourse of whose checkered life had run as strangely as that of one of her favorite novel heroines.
So it happened that when Golden looked timidly up expecting to be immediately annihilated by her scornful glance, she met only the gentlest pity beaming from the large, blue eyes of the unhappy woman.
"Come to me, Golden," she said, and as the young girl advanced she asked her in a strangely saddened voice:
"Are you angry with me, child, that I have filled your mother's place and worn her name for twelve, long years?"
"No, I am not angry," Golden answered, gently. "It was through no fault of yours—you did not know."
"No, I did not know," Mrs. Leith murmured, putting her hands to her eyes while the tears fell through her fingers. "I did not know, and now it is too late."
"What shall you do now?" Golden asked her wonderingly.
"I shall go away," Mrs. Leith replied, sadly.
"Are you angry with my father?" asked the girl.
"No, Golden, he sinned ignorantly," replied Mrs. Leith. "Therefore I cannot blame him. But I must go away from him, and never see him again until he learns the truth whether or not his first wife was living when he married me."
Then there was a brief silence. The two women, so lately mistress and maid—now placed upon the same level by the equalizing hand of sorrow, sat still a little while looking out upon the unknown future with dreary, hopeless eyes. Then Mrs. Leith roused herself with an effort.
"And you, Golden—where will you go? What will you do?" she asked.
"God knows," the girl exclaimed, hopelessly. "I am so stunned by the revelations of to-day that I know not where to turn. For weary months the dream of finding and reclaiming my guilty mother has filled and occupied my thoughts. Now that I know her innocent and pure, the terrible mystery of her fate chills the blood in my veins. Where shall I look for her? How shall I find her?"
Mrs. Leith looked at her compassionately.
"Poor child!" she said. "You are too ill and weary to seek for anyone now. Leave that sorrowful quest to your father, and place yourself in my care."
The tears brimmed over in Golden's beautiful eyes at the kindly spoken words of her step-mother.
"Oh, madam," she cried, "you offer to befriend me. Then you do not believe that I am the lost and guilty creature they would fain make me out."
Mrs. Leith's beautiful face beamed with sympathy as she answered:
"No, Golden, I do not believe you are a sinner. I have a strong conviction that you are a deserted or discarded wife, and I will care for you in your forlorn situation with the tenderness of your own mother."