The next day men were set to work to drag the lake for Golden Leith's
body.
A poor, bleached skeleton, partially petrified by the action of the
water, and therefore in a good state of preservation, was all they
found.
The broad, gold band of a wedding-ring still clung to the fleshless
finger, and the name within was all that remained to assure them that
this was she whom they sought--the hapless girl whose bright life had
been blasted by a brother's sin, and whose name had been covered with
ignominy and shame for sixteen years.
They placed the precious remains in a coffin, and prepared to give them
Christian burial the next day.
All night and all day it stood on trestles in Hugh Glenalvan's
sitting-room, with mourners at head and foot--the husband and father,
so tragically bereaved of their darling, sat there dumb and tearless
in their great affliction, and old Dinah stole in and out, with the
corner of her apron pressed to her streaming eyes, her old black face
convulsed with grief.
Only a few days ago the daughter's coffin had stood there where the
mother's rested now.
Both her nurslings were gone, and the faithful, old creature's heart
was almost broken.
Throughout the night and day not a member of John Glenalvan's family
was visible. The curtains remained drawn at the windows, the doors
closed, there was no sign of life within the house.
The time came when poor little Golden's remains were to be consigned to
the kindly shelter of the grave.
It was a beautiful evening about the first of March. The grass was blue
with violets, the birds twittered softly in the orange and magnolia
trees, the sun shone brightly as it slowly declined in the western sky;
Dinah had been in and deposited some beautiful wreaths of flowers upon
the bier.
The friends who had loved the dead woman long ago had come to know her
mournful fate at last, and had sent these sweet testimonials of their
sympathy and grief.
They were waiting in the graveyard to pay the last outward tokens of
respect to the lost one, but they would not venture to the house to
intrude on the privacy of the bereaved ones.
So the gentle minister came and told them that they must bid a last
farewell to the loved one, and Bertram Chesleigh stood ready to support
the still feeble footsteps of Richard Leith with his strong young arm.
"Oh, my daughter, my daughter, how cruelly God has afflicted me,"
moaned the bereaved father, laying his white head down upon the
coffin-lid, while the first heavy tears splashed down his cheeks.
"Do not arraign your Maker. Rather thank Him that your child has
at last been proven pure and innocent," said the minister, to whom
Golden's whole history was known.
"Thank God," Bertram Chesleigh uttered fervently, then, with a sigh
that was almost a sob, he added: "Ah, if only my wife had lived to see
this day!"
"She lives--she is here!" said a low, clear voice in the doorway.
All looked around, startled. Two figures were entering the room. Both
were clothed in deep mourning.
One was Gertrude Leith, pale and grave-looking, the other was alight,
and deeply veiled. She clung to Mrs. Leith's arm tremblingly. They
crossed the floor and stood by that long, dark, solemn object that
occupied the center of the room. Mrs. Leith raised her companion's veil.
All started and uttered a cry of incredulous surprise.
Little Golden's daughter, pallid, beautiful, tearful, was standing
there, looking at them across her mother's coffin.
"Thank God!" she said, in her sweet, clear voice, with a sound of tears
in its sweetness. "Thank God, my mother was pure and innocent! The
dream of my life-time is fulfilled at last."
"Does the grave give up its dead?" they cried, and Bertram Chesleigh
went to her side and touched her white hand, half-fearfully.
"My wife," he said.
"Yes, your wife," she answered, lifting her violet eyes to his face
with such deep reproach in their tragic depths, that he was awed into
momentary silence.
Then she turned from him, and went to her grandfather, who was gazing
at her with dazed eyes full of grief and dread. She put her arms around
his neck, and kissed his poor, withered cheek with her sweet, quivering
lips.
"Grandpa, you must not take me for a ghost," she said. "It is your own
little Golden come back to live and love you again. I was not dead,
after all. Did I not tell you I could not die yet? But I cannot tell
you all the story of my rescue from the grave now. Let us give all our
thoughts to our martyred dead."
She looked up and saw her father and old Dinah waiting to greet her.
It was a strange scene beside that flower-wreathed coffin.
There was passionate joy over the living girl, and bitter sorrow over
the dead.
Mrs. Leith had beckoned Bertram Chesleigh away. Behind the heavy
hangings of the bay-window she said to him, gently:
"Do not press your wife yet, Mr. Chesleigh. Remember you have wronged
her deeply, and she does not yet know how you have repented and atoned."
"I can never atone," he said, heavily.
"Perhaps she may think differently when she knows all," said Mrs.
Leith. "Women are very tender and forgiving, you know."
"If she never speaks to me again, I shall still rejoice that she is
living," he said, with a beam of gladness in his large, black eyes.
"Do you wonder how she was saved?" she inquired.
"Yes."
"I will tell you, then, briefly," she answered. "You remember how you
bribed the grave-digger to open her coffin for you that night?"
"Yes, and then I was too ill to keep my appointment," he answered.
"That wild fancy of yours was the means of her rescue," said Mrs.
Leith. "When the man opened the coffin to be in readiness for you,
he discovered slight signs of life in Golden. Growing alarmed and
impatient at your tardiness, he sent his son to look for you, and the
youth encountered me. I went with him, and we removed her to the man's
little cottage near by. Little by little we fed the signs of reviving
life, and you see the result."
"For which I bless and thank you forever," he said, kissing her hand
respectfully.
"I have but little more to say," she went on, smiling a little sadly,
"and it is this: Golden is very weak and exhausted yet. She is not
strong enough to bear the excitement of her mother's burial. I will
remain here with her while they are bearing Mrs. Leith to the grave,
and I will tell her your whole story. She shall hear how you came back
here to seek her in two days after your ill-considered desertion of
her, and found her gone. I will tell her how nobly you vindicated her
honor beside her grave. She shall know that you forced John Glenalvan
to reveal the hidden story of her mother's fate. When you come back I
think she cannot fail to forgive you."
"You will do all this for me?" he said, with a strange moisture in his
eyes. "I cannot thank you sufficiently. You are an angel."
"No, only a very faulty and sad-hearted woman," she replied, with a
pensive sigh, and then they went back to the mourners.
She kept her promise nobly. While they bore the poor remains of Richard
Leith's first wife to the grave, his second wife sat with his daughter
and tried to turn the swelling current of her grief by relating the
story of Bertram Chesleigh's repentance and atonement.
"Golden, if you could have heard his noble vindication of your honor
beside your grave; how proudly he claimed you for his wife, and your
child for his own, you could not fail to pity and forgive him for
the one great error into which he was led by his own pride and John
Glenalvan's evil counsel."
"I have suffered so much through his fault," said the wronged wife,
with mournful pathos.
"Yes, dear, but you must show your own nobility of soul now," said the
step-mother, gently. "You must remember:
"'To err is human,
To forgive divine.'"
The beautiful, pale face grew very grave and troubled.
"If only I could forget his cruelty," she said. "Ah, my friend, I was
hurt so cruelly by that letter he sent me! I trusted him so fully. I
believed in his truth as I believed in my God. I was almost maddened by
the suddenness of my sorrow. Every word is branded upon my memory. See!
I can repeat every sentence:
"'Though it almost kills me to forsake you, Golden, I must go away. The
disgrace of your birth is so terrible that I can never claim you for
my wife. Pride and honor alike forbid it. You must see for yourself,
poor child, that your terrible misfortune has wholly set you apart from
the world, and as you have sworn to keep our private marriage a secret
until I give you leave to reveal it, I must beg you to hold the story
unspoken in your breast forever.'"
She paused and looked at Mrs. Leith with a whole tragedy of sorrow in
her violet orbs.
"Were they not cruel words to write to his own wife?" she said
pathetically. "But I obeyed him. Through all the shame and sorrow
that came afterward I kept my promise. Do you think I did not suffer
more than death in keeping it? When Mrs. Desmond drove me out in such
terrible disgrace do you think I did not long to say to her: I am as
good and pure as you are; I am your brother's wife! And what did I not
suffer when I knew she was separated from her husband on my account?
Then when my own father disowned and despised me, how my heart ached to
answer, I am Bertram Chesleigh's own wife! Oh, Gertrude, is it right
and just that I should forgive him for all that I have suffered and
made others suffer for his sake?"
"Yes, dear, because his repentance was so quick and his remorse so
deep," said the gentle monitor. "You must remember, Golden, that if you
had not gone away that night you would have escaped all that suffering;
your husband returned in twenty-four hours to claim you, and John
Glenalvan told him that you had gone away with the deliberate intention
of leading a sinful life. Do you wonder that it threw him on a bed of
sickness that almost cost him his life? You must forgive him and love
him again, dear, because he is so penitent and devoted now."
And when the mourners returned from that sad funeral, Mrs. Leith sent
him in to his wronged wife.
He knelt down before the pale, golden-haired girl, and begged her to
forgive him, not that he deserved it, but because he loved her so
dearly.
With the meek tenderness of woman, she forgave him and there was peace
between them.
Several hours later he had led her out to old Hugh Glenalvan who was
dozing sadly in his easy-chair.
"Mr. Glenalvan," he said, "you see my darling has risen from the grave
to forgive me. Will you keep the promise you made, and forgive me too?"
"Yes, grandpa, you must forgive him, for I love him dearly," said
little Golden.
So the old man forgave him, and solemnly blessed them as they knelt
before him, one withered hand resting kindly on the dark, bowed head,
and the other on the golden one.