"You are the image of your mother, my child," said Golden's
grandfather. "She had a white skin, pink cheeks, blue eyes, and shining
hair. You inherit her happy, light-hearted disposition. You bear the
same name also--Golden Glenalvan."
"Why was I never called by my father's name?" asked innocent Golden.
"My child, you anticipate my story," he answered, "but I will tell you.
You have no right to your father's name."
A cry of terror came from the parted lips of the girl.
"Oh, grandpa, you do not mean _that_--you could not be so cruel!"
"You must remember that it is not my fault," he answered.
She sprang up and stood before him, with a look of white despair on her
lovely young face.
"Now I understand it all," she said. "I know why my life is so unlike
that of other girls. Oh, grandpa, grandpa, tell me where to find my
mother that I may curse her for my ruined life!"
His only answer was a low and heart-wrung groan.
"Grandpa, tell me where to find her," repeated little Golden, wildly.
"She must be living, for I remember now that no one has ever told me
plainly that she was dead. I will go to her--I will reproach her for
her sin! I will tell her what a life mine has been--how I have been
hated and despised for my mother's fault, even by my kindred."
Sighs, long and bitter, heaved the old man's breast, but he answered
her not. She flung herself weeping at his feet.
"You do not speak!" she cried. "Oh, grandpa, tell me where to find my
cruel mother!"
"She is with your father," said Hugh Glenalvan, in a deep and bitter
voice that showed what agony he endured in the revelation of his
daughter's disgrace and infamy.
Golden threw up her little hands in convulsive agony.
"Oh, not that!" she cried. "Tell me it is not true!"
Again he had no answer for her, and Golden cried out reproachfully:
"Grandpa, grandpa, why did you suffer her to be so wicked?"
"It was through no fault of mine," he answered heavily.
She looked at him in silent anguish a moment, then she asked him:
"Where is she? Tell me where to find her, if you know."
"John told me she was in New York the last time he heard of her; but
that was years ago. I pray God that she may be dead ere this."
And then he wrung his hands, and the tears rolled down his withered
cheeks.
"Oh, my lost little daughter, my precious little Golden," he moaned in
agony. "How little I dreamed in your innocent babyhood that you were
reserved for such a fate!"
Golden was regarding him attentively.
"Uncle John told you she was in New York," she said. "What did Uncle
John know? Did he hate my mother as he hates me?"
He looked at her, startled.
"Hate your mother," he cried. "His own sister! No--of course not--that
is, not until she fell!"
"He hated her then?" asked Golden, musingly.
"Yes, he hated her then. I believe he could have killed her."
"He should have killed her betrayer," said Golden, who seemed suddenly
to have acquired the gravity and thoughtfulness of a woman.
"I would have killed him myself if I could have laid hands on the
villain," said her grandfather, with sudden, irrepressible passion.
The bitter grief and impatient wrath of the girl had sobered down into
quietness more grievous than tears.
Her face showed deathly white in the dim light; her lips were set in a
line of intense pain; her pansy-blue eyes had grown black with feeling.
She brought a low stool and sat down at her grandfather's feet, folding
her white hands meekly in her lap, and drooping her fair head heavily.
"Grandpa, I will not interrupt you again," she said. "I will sit here
quite still, and listen. Now tell me all my mother's story."
She kept her word.
After he had told her all he had to tell, and she knew the whole tragic
story of her mother's disgrace, she still sat there silently, with her
dark eyes bent on her clasped hands.
The cloud of shame and disgrace seemed to lower upon her head with the
weight of the whole world.
"You understand all I have told, my child?" he said to her, after
waiting vainly for her to speak.
She put her small hand to her head in a dazed, uncertain way.
"Oh, yes, I think so," she replied. "But my head seems in a whirl. I
will ask you just a few questions, grandpa, to make sure that I have
understood."
And then she seemed to fall into a "brown study." When she had
collected her thoughts a little she began to question him.
"I think you said that my mother eloped at sixteen with a handsome
stranger whose acquaintance she had casually made in her long, lonely
rambles in the woods. In a few weeks she wrote to you from New York
that she was happily married. Am I right, grandpa?"
"Yes," he replied.
"And then, although you and Uncle John wrote repeatedly, you could
hear no more from her until a year had passed, and she came back
unexpectedly one dreadful stormy night."
She paused, and he murmured a dreary, "Yes, dear."
"She was in sore trouble," the girl went on, slowly. "She had found out
that her husband had deceived her. She was not legally his wife. Their
marriage had only been a mock marriage. So she left him."
"That is right," he said, as she paused again.
"And Uncle John, her only and elder brother, cursed her for the
disgrace she had brought on the Glenalvans. I think you told me that,
did you not, dear grandpa?" she said, lifting her heavy eyes a moment
to his sad, old face.
"Yes, dear, he cursed her. John was always stern and hard, and he
was always jealous of our love for his little sister. He thought we
had spoiled her, and he was bitterly angry when she returned to us
in sorrow and shame. He was married to a woman as hard as himself,
and they were both for driving her forth like a dog. But Dinah and
I--for my daughter's mother had died while she was away--were too
tender-hearted for that. We cared for the poor, desolate child in spite
of John's threats and curses."
"And that very night I was born," said little Golden, with the heaviest
sigh in which any mortal ever cursed the ill-fated hour of birth.
"Yes, you were born in the storm and terror of that dreadful night,"
he answered with a heavy sigh. "And your mother almost broke her heart
over you because you would never bear the name of the man she had loved
so well."
"And that name, dear grandpa, tell me what it was," she cried, with
repressed eagerness.
"My dear, she would never reveal that name. She loved him although he
had betrayed her. She was afraid of our vengeance."
A look of keen disappointment came over the beautiful, mobile face.
"But, grandpa," she said, "when she wrote you from New York, after she
left you, in the first flush of her happiness, when she had not your
vengeance to fear, did she not reveal her name then?"
"Not even then," said the old man, bitterly. "She hinted that there was
some innocent but just cause for secrecy just then, but that she would
send her true name and address in the next letter. That next letter
never came."
"There is not the slightest clew for me, then. I shall never find my
mother," said the girl, sorrowfully.
"Golden, why should you wish to find her? She is a sinner, leading a
life of shame. She deserted you in your helpless infancy to return to
the arms of the villain who had betrayed her."
"So Uncle John says," returned the girl, meaningly.
He started, more at the tone than the words.
"Golden, do you doubt him?" he cried.
"Yes," said the girl steadily, turning on him the full splendor of her
purple-blue eyes, in which glowed a spark of indignant fire. "Yes,
grandpa, I doubt it. I utterly refuse to believe such a scandalous
story of my mother."
He looked at her sadly, touched by her loyal faith in the mother she
had never known.
"But think, my dear," he said. "You were but a few days old when she
stole away in the night and left you without a line to tell us of her
whereabouts. But John's blood was up. He traced her to New York, and
learned enough to be sure that she had returned to her lover. Then he
lost all trace of them, and came home reluctantly enough, for he would
have shot the villain if he could have laid hands on him."
"It is a plausible story," the girl said, thoughtfully. "I might
believe it if any one but John Glenalvan had told it. But oh, grandpa,
that man always reminds me of a snake in the grass."
"My child, that is one of old Dinah's homely phrases," he remonstrated.
"It is a very true one, though," she maintained, stoutly.
He saw that he could not convince her, so he sighed and remained silent.
He had never thought of doubting his son's assertion himself. Golden's
incredulity awakened a vague sense of uneasiness in his mind.
The girl sat silently also for a brief space of time, while the old
clock in the corner slowly ticked away the moments of that momentous
night.
She roused herself from her drooping, dejected attitude at last and
looked up at the quiet old man.
"Grandpa," she said anxiously, as if some sudden doubt or fear had
come into her mind, "what will Bert say when he hears this dreadful
story?"
"Bert?" said her grandfather, questioningly.
"Mr. Chesleigh, I mean," she replied. "What will he say when my story
is known to him? Will he, too, hate me for my mother's sin?"
A look of pain and dread came over the sad, old face.
"My darling, how can I tell?" he said. "I have heard that the
Chesleighs are very proud. It is only too likely that he will scorn you
when he knows the truth. I am afraid you must give up all thought of
loving him, dear."
A strange, intense look came over the beautiful young face.
"I cannot do that," she said. "I love him with my whole heart! I shall
love him all my life. He loves me, too, grandpa. He cannot give me up!
He will be true to me. I am not to blame for my mother's fault."
"No, dear, I know that," he answered; "but the sins of the parents are
visited on the children. It is not likely that Mr. Chesleigh will care
to wed a nameless girl. He is wealthy and high-born, and can have his
choice from among the best in the land. Your Cousin Elinor aspires to
marry him."
"He will never marry Elinor," said little Golden, decidedly. "He loves
me alone. He will be true to me."
"God grant it, dear," her grandfather said, with a patient sigh, in
which there was but little hope.
Then he looked up and saw the first pale gleams of the summer dawn
stealing into the room through the open window.
The birds began to warble their mating songs in the broad-leaved
magnolia trees outside, as if there were no care nor sorrow, nor
blighting disgrace anywhere in the wide, beautiful world.
"My little one," he said to the grave, hollow-eyed child, who seemed
suddenly to have grown a full-statured woman, "go to your room and
rest. You look terribly ill and wretched. Do not go back to the haunted
chamber again, but to your old room down stairs. Try to sleep, if you
can."
He looked after her in wonder as she turned to obey him. Yesterday
she had been a beautiful, charming, careless child, full of pretty,
evanescent angers and quick repentances.
The bloom, the smiles, the brightness were all gone now. The gold-brown
lashes drooped heavily against the death-white cheeks, the sweet lips
quivered heart-brokenly, the slow and lagging step was that of a weary
woman.