Chapter XXXV

"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 quite sure 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 to stand 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 you _are_ glad, 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; you _must_ speak," 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, for _I 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.