The twilight hour found Bertram Chesleigh wending his way to the green
graveyard where his hapless wife lay buried. As he had hoped, he found
the old grave-digger waiting for him.
He had been sodding the mound with velvety green turf, and planting
lilies and immortelles upon it.
"Why have you done this?" he said. "Did you not know I would come
to-night? I was at death's door last night, or I would have come as I
said. Did you do what you promised?"
"Yes, sir, and waited a long time for you," said the man, doffing his
cap respectfully. "I even sent my son to look for you. He learned of
your bad condition, and then we were compelled to put the coffin back
in the ground again."
There was a strange, repressed excitement in the man's manner, but
Mr. Chesleigh, absorbed in the bitterness of his own despair, did not
observe it.
He counted over a hundred dollars into the man's hand, and then said,
with a tremor of hope in his voice:
"I will double the amount if you will do your work over to-night. I
_must_ see her. I am mad for one last look at my darling's face!"
The grave-digger shuddered.
"Oh, sir, it is too late," he said. "Have you forgotten how soon
death's touch blasts everything human? And the little babe--_that_ was
dead long before _she_ was. I know you could not bear to see them now."
"Hush, hush!" the mourner cried, in a voice of agony. "I will hear no
more. Go, now, and leave me!"
"Cheer up, sir," said the man, with a strange gleam in his eyes, as he
turned to go. "The Lord may have some blessing in store for you yet,
sir."
His only answer was a hollow groan from the wretched man. He threw
himself face downward on the green grave, crushing all the sweet lilies
and immortelles beneath his shuddering frame, and cried out to Heaven
to kill him because he had blighted Golden's innocent life.
He lay there an hour or two, musing sorrowfully over the hapless fate
of his beautiful girl-bride.
He recalled their brief, happy love-dream from which they had been so
rudely awakened.
Over and over again he cursed himself for that first impulse of pride
and selfishness that had made him false to his bride in the hour when
he should have protected and shielded her.
A passionate, despairing longing to see her again filled his soul.
"I will go back and wander by the lake again," he resolved, in the
madness of his despair. "It was there that we spent our sweetest, most
blissful hours. In the calm and silence of the night I will dream them
over again."
He went to the lake, but the very spirit of unrest was upon him.
The stars came forth and shone weirdly in the sky, the perfume of
spring flowers sweetened the air. He grew restless and fanciful.
Such a brief while ago she had stolen nightly from the haunted rooms to
meet him here beside the silvery lake.
It almost seemed that she would come to him presently, gliding like a
fairy across the green lawn to the glad shelter of his arms.
Some impulse prompted him to seek the haunted rooms, to spend an hour
of solitary musing in their quiet shade.
He knew of a retired stairway by which he could make his way
unperceived, and following the blind fate that led him, he went up to
the hall and up the narrow, secluded stairs which little Golden had
shown him, and by which she had obtained egress to her lover.
He went along the dark corridor with a strangely beating heart, and
paused before the closed door of the haunted room.
He placed his hand on the knob, but to his surprise it refused to yield
to his touch.
Disappointed, he was about turning away, when a heavy step crossed the
floor inside, the key clicked in the lock, and the door was cautiously
opened.
A flood of light streamed out into the corridor, and showed Bertram
Chesleigh the tall form, and dark, saturnine face of John Glenalvan.
There was a moment of complete astonishment on the part of each of the
two men.
Both recoiled from each other in the first suddenness of the shock, and
then an angry oath burst from John Glenalvan's lips.
"I thought it was Elinor!"
"Luckily you were mistaken," returned Mr. Chesleigh, quickly recovering
his wits. "This _rencontre_ is most opportune for me, sir. I have
wished to see you."
He stepped into the room as he spoke, and boldly confronted the
villain, who glared at him with a mixture of defiance and dismay.
"You wished to see me. I feel flattered," he said, with an attempt at
cutting sarcasm. "May I ask why?"
There was a moment's silence while Bertram Chesleigh rapidly reviewed
the situation in his mind. Then he spoke:
"You may ask, and I may answer," he said. "Mr. Glenalvan, I might heap
the bitterest reproach upon your head, if by so doing the cruel work of
your life might be undone. But the past is past. My wife is dead, and
no reproaches and no lamentations can bring her back to me. But there
is one issue between you and me. I have taken up my dead wife's quest
where she left it. I demand that you shall tell me where to find my
little Golden's deeply-wronged mother."
The dark face before him whitened to the awful pallor of death, the
man's eyes blazed luridly, his hands were clenched as they hung at his
sides.
"What if I refuse to answer your question?" he inquired, in a low,
tense voice.
"I will find means to force you to confession," Bertram Chesleigh
replied, unhesitatingly.
"I defy you to do so," John Glenalvan replied, with an imprecation. "I
am not afraid of you."
"You have caused my wife's death, and nearly murdered her father. I
will have you arrested for it," exclaimed Mr. Chesleigh.
"Do so, and I will prove that I only acted in self-defense," was the
instant reply.
"I will charge you with the murder or abduction of Golden Leith, your
own sister," pursued Mr. Chesleigh.
"And I will swear before any court in the land that she is the inmate
of a nameless house in New York," was the taunting answer of the
villain.
They gazed at each other a moment, then Bertram Chesleigh exclaimed, in
wonder:
"What a black and unnatural heart you must have, John Glenalvan. How
can you thus malign the fair fame of your own sister?"
"Do not call her my sister. I hated her, the blue-eyed, doll-faced
creature. She stole the love of my parents from me. It was all lavished
on her, there was none left for me. But I have had a most glorious
revenge," he laughed, wickedly.
"Yes, you have had a most terrible revenge," said Bertram Chesleigh,
with a shudder. "You have blighted her life and that of her child. Four
lives--perhaps five--have been ruined by your sin. Is it not time that
vengeance should cease?"
"No!" thundered John Glenalvan, harshly. "For sixteen years the taste
of revenge has been sweet on my lips. It is sweet still."
"And you will not speak?" asked Bertram Chesleigh.
"Never!" with triumphant malice.
"I have one card yet to play," began the other, slowly.
A light step suddenly crossed the threshold, and Elinor Glenalvan
appeared in the room, bearing a waiter with a substantial supper
arranged upon it.
"Papa, were you growing impatient?" she asked; then her startled eyes
fell on Bertram Chesleigh, meeting a glance of fiery scorn.
"_You here_!" she gasped.
The waiter fell from her nerveless hands, and its contents crashed upon
the floor.