There was a moment's silence, then Mr. Leith said, huskily:
"Tell me how this fact came to your knowledge, Desmond."
"Do you remember the sudden trip my wife and I took to Florida last
summer?"
"Yes, I heard of it," the lawyer replied.
"I will go back a few months previous to that trip." Mr. Desmond said.
"It was this winter a year previous that Bertram Chesleigh made the
acquaintance of young Frederick Glenalvan in New York and was invited
by him to visit his far-away Floridian home.
"About the first of last June Bert accepted the invitation, and spent
about two weeks at Glenalvan Hall.
"He wrote to my wife from there, hinting vaguely at having lost his
heart to a perfect 'pearl of beauty.'
"Edith, who is excessively proud, and mortally afraid of a
_mesalliance_, replied to him coolly, discountenancing the idea and
begging him not to marry out of his own state.
"Between you and me, Leith, I believe she had a great heiress booked
for the young fellow in New York."
He paused for breath, but at Richard Leith's look of impatience, went
on hastily:
"Bertram did not reply to his sister's letter, but in the latter part
of the same month Fred Glenalvan wrote us that Bertram was lying ill
with brain fever.
"We went to him at once and found him not expected to live, He was
delirious, and through all his illness he called incessantly on one
name. Morning, noon and night it was always, 'Golden, Golden, Golden.'"
A groan forced itself through Richard Leith's rigid lips, but he did
not speak, and Mr. Desmond continued:
"That cry for Golden was always coupled with a wild appeal for
forgiveness for some wrong, the nature of which we could not determine.
"My curiosity and that of my wife were powerfully excited, and we
wondered who the Golden was that he called upon, and why she never came.
"It was quite evident that the Glenalvans did not care to divulge
the secret, so we never presumed to ask, but when Bertram grew
convalescent Edith inquired of him, and he told her the truth."
"Let me hear it," said Richard Leith, gaspingly, while the knotted
veins stood out like cords on his forehead.
"It was the same story your daughter told you--that of a fair young
girl kept aloof from her kind, slighted and scorned for no visible
fault."
"Bertram met and loved her. They had some secret meetings by night in
one of which they were discovered, and in the scene that followed, the
fact was disclosed that the girl was illegitimate."
"Oh, my weakness, my sin!" groaned the wretched listener. "Curses upon
John Glenalvan for his horrible villainy."
"Bertram declared that he had only entertained the most honorable
feelings toward the girl," said Mr. Desmond, "but he confessed that
the knowledge of her parentage so staggered him that he was induced to
forsake her. He left Glenalvan Hall before daylight without seeing her
again."
"The cowardly cur!" Richard Leith exclaimed, clenching his hands until
the purple nails sunk into the quivering flesh.
"Hear me out," said Mr. Desmond, quickly, "before you judge him too
hardly."
"I am listening," answered Richard Leith, trying to master his surging
passions beneath an appearance of calmness. "I am listening, but what
more can there be to say, Mr. Desmond?"
"This, Mr. Leith: Bertram went away, determined to forsake the hapless
girl, but his love and remorse, and the overpowering cause of shame,
urged his return so powerfully that in three days he returned to
Glenalvan Hall with the full intention of marrying the girl at once,
and taking her abroad with him where no one knew her unfortunate story.
"When he reached there she was gone--none knew whither. John Glenalvan
told him that she had gone away with the boldly-avowed intention of
leading a life of sin with her mother. Poor Bertram had suffered so
much that he could not bear that crowning blow. He staggered and fell
like a log at the villain's feet. A brain fever followed that nearly
cost him his life."
"One more score is added to my terrible list against John Glenalvan,"
Richard Leith muttered darkly.
"I have no more to say," continued Mr. Desmond, "except that all the
circumstances point unerringly at Bertram Chesleigh as the man who
wronged your daughter."
"You are right," groaned the unhappy father. "Oh, God, if only she had
remained at Glenalvan Hall that he might have made reparation for his
sin!"
"Did not Bertram write to you in relation to the unfortunate affair? He
mentioned an intention to do so," said Mr. Desmond.
"Only a letter so cautiously worded that I could gain no clew to the
real truth," replied Richard Leith. "No names were mentioned. He only
described the girl who was supposed to have entered some one of the
many nameless houses in this city. He wished me to reclaim her, if
possible, provide her a home, and he agreed to make her a generous
allowance."
"Poor Bert," said Mr. Desmond, "and all the while she was in his
sister's employ, and in reach of his hand, if he had only known it."
There was a moment's heavy silence; then Richard Leith rose hastily.
"I must go home now," he said. "I--may God forgive me--I was so
maddened by my child's wrongs and my own suspicions that I refused to
own her; I drove her away from her rightful home. Pray God that she
be not gone. If she has, I must bring her back and tell her that I
know her whole sad story, and I must make the best I can of her poor,
blighted life."
"Shall you write to Bertram Chesleigh?" inquired Desmond.
"Yes, for they must know that they have wronged you, and that you are
innocent," replied the lawyer. "And, Desmond, you must write to your
wife. I will inclose your letter with mine, otherwise, in her pride and
anger, she might return it unopened. I thank God that your fidelity is
vindicated, and that your reunion is now insured."
"I have a better plan than writing to her," said Desmond, blushing like
a school-girl. "I will follow your letter to her brother, and plead
my cause in person. I cannot wait, Leith; I am too impatient. I long
to meet my wife and child again. You will give me their address? The
_Europa_ sails to-night. I must go with her."
Mr. Leith saw no objection to the plan. He was sorry for the impatient
husband who had received a lesson that would last a life-time.
He gave him his wife's address in Italy, with his cordial good wishes
and went away to seek his wronged, unhappy daughter.
"She cannot have gone yet. She was to weak and ill to have gone to-day.
She would have waited until she was better," he kept whispering to his
reproachful heart as he hurried along.
Then he thought of the beautiful, fashionable woman who had taken the
place of little Golden's mother, and worn her name for twelve long
years.
"Poor Gertrude," he murmured sadly. "I wonder how she bears it. Perhaps
she will not grieve much. She does not love me as she did when I first
made her my wife. Perhaps I am to blame. I have chilled her tender
nature by my carelessness or coldness, for I have never loved her as I
did my lost little Golden."
He hurried up the marble steps and ran impatiently along the hall,
stumbling against the housekeeper, who was pacing sedately along with a
little basket of keys.
As he was rushing past her she stopped and called to him.
"Mistress and her maid are gone away, sir."
"Where?" he inquired, pausing and looking back in bewildered surprise.
"I cannot tell you, for I do not know," the woman replied,
respectfully. "But she bade me say that she left a letter for you on
her dressing-table."
He ran up to Mrs. Leith's dressing-room, and found it in some slight
disorder, as if traveling bags had been hurriedly packed.
Amid the dainty litter of the dressing-table he saw a square envelope
addressed to himself, and hurriedly tore it open.
His gaze ran over the few pathetic words daintily penciled on the
perfumed, satiny sheet.
"Richard," she wrote. "I have gone away from you. I have long felt that
I had but a small share in your heart, and now I know that I have,
perhaps, no right to your name, and no place in your home. So it is
best that I should leave you. I have taken little Golden with me. There
is one thing, at least, that I can do. I can be a mother to the child
whose father has disowned her, and whose mother is so tragically lost.
"You were wrong, Richard. The child has been wronged, but I believe
that she is innocent. I have loved you more than you knew; perhaps more
than you cared, and for your sake I will care for your forlorn child.
You will not seek for us. We are companions in misery, and you will
respect our grief. I cannot tell you where we shall go. But if you find
little Golden's mother I shall know it, and the mother shall have her
child."
With the simple name, "Gertrude," the letter ended; Richard Leith
reread it slowly, filled with a great surprise and wonder.
"She will care for the child I treated so heartlessly," he murmured.
"God bless her. I did not know that Gertrude could be so true and
noble. I have wronged her indeed, and she has worn the mask of
carelessness and frivolity over a wounded heart. Oh, God, if I only
knew where to find them."
He almost cursed himself for his cruelty to his wronged and miserable
daughter.
He remembered how young she was, and how ignorant of the world when
Bertram Chesleigh had won her heart. Perhaps she was not to blame.
His wrath waxed hot against the man who had betrayed her guileless
innocence.
He went down and asked the housekeeper if Mrs. Leith had gone away in
the carriage, and she answered that the lady had walked, and the maid
had accompanied her.
"I cannot go south until I have found them," he said to himself, sadly.
"Poor little Golden, poor Gertrude."
Before the next day he had visited every depot and every wharf by which
they might have left the city, but he had learned nothing. The next day
after he inserted a personal in the _Herald_:
"TO GERTRUDE:--Return with Golden. Her true story is known and she is
freely forgiven. Anxiously, R. L."
But the two for whom that yearning cry was written were fated never to
behold it. And the dreary winter days came and went while he waited for
tidings, filled with the heart-sickness of a great despair.