Chapter XL

John Glenalvan did not heed his father's frightened remonstrance.

He continued to rain furious blows on his feeble but struggling foe.

The fell instinct of murder was aroused within his soul, and Richard Leith would have fallen a sure victim to its fury, but that suddenly the slight form of a woman rushed into the room, and, with a wild and piercing shriek, sprang upon John Glenalvan's neck, clutching it with frantic fingers in the endeavor to tear him from his almost dying victim.

Almost strangling in the fierce tenacity of her grasp, the wretch released Mr. Leith, and springing upward with a savage bound, threw his frail assailant from him into the middle of the room.

The terrible shock hurled her prostrate on the floor. She lay there stunned and bleeding, and the wretch, after one horror-struck glance at her, rushed from the room.

"Golden--it is Golden! and he has killed her" wailed her grandfather, falling on his knees beside her; and Richard Leith, where he lay, half dying, comprehended the anguished wail, and crawled on his hands and knees to the side of his hapless daughter.

It was little Golden, indeed, but she lay still and silent, with the blood oozing from her nostrils and a slight cut on her temple.

As he reached her side, old Dinah rushed into the room.

"Little missie, little missie!" she cried; then she stopped short in terror. "Oh, my Hebenly Master, who has done dis t'ing?"

"Dinah," her master said quickly, "go and send Fred Glenalvan to me."

She hobbled out obediently, and in a moment returned with the handsome young dandy, who glanced at his grandfather with haughty indifference.

"Fredrick," the old man said, with strange sternness, "here are two people whom your father has nearly killed. You must go and bring a doctor for them."

Frederick started at the sight of the bleeding forms upon the floor, but in an instant his countenance hardened into marble.

"If my father has hurt them," he replied, "I doubt not that he had good reason for doing so, and they may die before I will fetch a physician to them."

With that insolent reply he turned on his heel and left the room.

"Vipers!" muttered the old man, indignantly, then he looked at Dinah sadly.

"My faithful old soul," he said, "you must do what you can for them. I must go and seek for help myself."

He went feebly from the room and across the lawn. Outside the gates he encountered a carriage waiting. The driver stood on the ground by the horses' heads, and a lady sat on the satin cushions with a troubled look on her lovely, blond face. She sprang out impulsively and came up to him.

"Oh, sir," she cried, "I _know_ you are Mr. Glenalvan. Have you seen little Golden? She went into the hall a few minutes ago."

"I have seen her, I fear she is dead, and I must bring a doctor," the old man wailed, heart-brokenly.

She caught his arm and turned to the driver.

"Drive into town at your highest speed and fetch a physician," she said, throwing her purse at his feet, then she took the old man's arm and hurried him in.

"I am your little Golden's friend," she explained to him as they went along. "I came here with her and was waiting outside while she paid you a visit."

Old Dinah was bathing the wound of her unconscious mistress when they entered, and Richard Leith lay upon the floor watching her with dim, despairing eyes.

"Oh, Heaven, who has done this terrible deed?" Mrs. Leith cried wildly, as her eyes took in the dreadful scene.

"Gertrude," her husband cried out at the sound of her voice, and she knelt down by him weeping wildly.

"Oh, Richard, who is it that has killed you and your child?" she sobbed in anguish.

"It is John Glenalvan's dreadful work," he replied, then he looked into her face with dim, yearning eyes.

"Gertrude! I believe I am dying," he said faintly. "Will you forgive me before I die?"

"Forgive you?" she said. "Ah, Richard, do not think that I blamed you. You sinned ignorantly."

"Yes, ignorantly," he echoed, and a spasm of pain crossed his face an instant, then he said sadly: "But I did not mean _that_, Gertrude. I meant you must forgive me that I was careless and blind, that I did not prize your true heart more."

She put her white hand to her heart, and a look of pain came into the large, blue eyes, then she said with mournful pathos:

"For all the heartaches I have borne. Richard, I freely forgive you."

"Thank you," he murmured, then his eyes dwelt on her gratefully. "It was so noble in you to care for my poor child," he murmured, "but Gertrude, I repented in an hour. I came back to tell her so, and she was gone, both were gone. I sought you everywhere, my heart nearly broke; I fell ill, and lay for weary weeks fevered and maddened by my impatience and anxiety. At last I grew better and came here!"

"Have you found _her_?" she murmured, anxiously, while the red blood suffused her fair cheeks.

He shook his head mournfully, and his eyes closed languidly. She believed that he was dead, and started up with a cry of woe, but when the physician came a little later he decided that he was only in a deep swoon.

Golden recovered consciousness, and the hapless father and daughter were removed to adjoining rooms, the physician veering anxiously from one room to another.

He believed that Mr. Leith's life might be saved by his medical skill, but he shook his head ominously over the beautiful, golden-haired child, whose shrill wails of agony pierced every heart, for in the agitation of her mind, and the fearful shock of her heavy fall, the pangs of premature motherhood had came upon her.

* * * * *

John Glenalvan had fled from the scene of his villainy with a speed to which sudden fear and remorse had lent wings. He believed that he had killed Richard Leith and his unfortunate child, and in the fear of punishment for his crime he did not even stop to apprise his family of what had occurred, but hurried away to seek a hiding-place for himself.

Too late he regretted the blind rage that had forced him into the commission of such a desperate deed. The cries of his victims seemed to pursue him in his hurried flight.

His son reported his cowardly deeds to his mother and sister, and they remained lost in fear and wonder.

To do them justice, wicked as they were, they had no idea of the enormity of John Glenalvan's sin. They honestly believed that his sister Golden had disgraced the family. They dreamed not of the dread secret locked in his breast.

Clare made a stealthy tour of discovery into the western wing, and soon finding out how matters stood, returned to her mother in a frenzy of wrath and anger against her hapless cousin, little Golden.

"Oh, mother, such dreadful goings on," she said. "That shameless girl sick in one room, a strange man dead in another, and a doctor, and old Dinah, and a strange woman tending them. If I were you, mother, I really should not stand it. I would turn the whole tribe out of doors--should not you, Fred?"

But Frederick, who, despite his defiant manner to his grandfather, looked pale and uneasy, vetoed the proposition as imprudent.

"I do not know what provocation my father had to maltreat them so," he said, "but certainly, they have a bad case against him; and if the man is dead, as you say, Clare, and if our cousin dies, too, they can indict him for murder."

Mrs. Glenalvan and her daughter were so frightened at that grim word, murder, that they broke into hysterical tears and sobbing, while the hopeful son and heir sat silent, overwhelmed by the dread of evil that had fallen upon them all, to which was added the terrors of doubt and suspense.

"That strange man and woman--who can they be, Fred?" inquired his mother.

"I cannot tell; but I have my suspicions," he replied. "I believe they are the parents of Golden."

"It is no wonder, then, that papa was goaded into attempting murder," cried Clare. "Only think of the impudence of our wicked aunt in coming back to Glanalvan Hall. I should think father must have been maddened at the very sight. And yet, mother, she is one of the fairest women I ever saw. She does not look like a lost woman. She has a very innocent appearance."

There were others beside these three, who wondered over the beautiful, strange woman who claimed to be little Golden's friend.

Old Dinah and her master gazed upon her wonderful beauty, which reminded them so powerfully of the missing Golden's, and they wondered what her name could be.

Old Dinah asked her at last what she should call her, and she answered simply, though with a burning blush:

"My name is Gertrude."

"Mrs. or Miss?" asked the inquisitive old negress, and again the lady's face grew crimson as she answered:

"Mrs."

"They must not know that I was his wife," she said to herself, resolutely. "I could not bear to have them know it. Perhaps they would hate me and judge him unjustly."

But her tears fell heavily as she looked at the deathly white face laying on the pillow, and she wondered to herself if it would not be less hard for her to see him die then and there, than live to find his lost wife again.

"God forgive me for my weakness and selfishness," she cried, starting at her own thoughts. "May he live to find the happiness of which he has been cheated so long."

The long, weary night, filled with mortal agony to poor little Golden, slowly wore away.

At the earliest peep of dawn a messenger arrived from the town with a telegram for Mr. Leith.

He lay barely conscious on his pillow, breathing heavily and slow, and the physician read the message to him cautiously.

It was from Mr. Desmond, and ran briefly:

"We arrived in New York this hour. Is Golden with you? Bertram is half-crazed with anxiety."

And across the lightning wires the fatal message flashed back to their anxious hearts:

"_Golden is here. Her child is dead and she is dying._"

Dying! This was the end of that brief dream of love, those weary months of supreme self-sacrifice.

Whiter than the pillow on which she lay, beautiful Golden was breathing her sad young life out in heavy sighs and moans, while hidden carefully out of sight beneath its white linen sheet, "There lay the sweet, little baby that never had drawn a breath."