Chapter XLIII

When Elinor had gone, Frederick Glenalvan turned curiously to Chesleigh.

"So you were really the husband of Golden Leith, and not her betrayer, as everybody believed?" he said.

"Yes, she was my lawful wife; but why do you call her Golden Leith?" Bertram Chesleigh inquired, curiously.

"Did you not know," said Fred, carelessly, "that she had found her father? He is a New York lawyer, and his name is Richard Leith. It seems that her mother was really married to him after all."

"Thank God! Then there is really not a shadow of disgrace upon my poor, wronged wife," cried Bertram Chesleigh, gladly. "Oh, God! if only she had lived."

He was silent a moment, then asked, suddenly:

"Where is Richard Leith now?"

"He is lying ill in the western wing of Glenalvan Hall," Frederick replied, with some embarrassment at the inward consciousness of who caused that illness.

"Is is possible? I must go to him at once," cried Bertram, starting up. "I am an old friend of Richard Leith. Will you accompany me, Fred?"

Frederick walked with him across the grassy slope of the lawn, but left him in the wide corridor that separated the divided dwellings of the strangely sundered family.

"I can accompany you no further," he said, confusedly. "The truth is, Mr. Leith and father have had a little difficulty, and we are not on the best of terms."

He turned away, and Bertram knocked nervously on the door before him, and was admitted by Dinah, who scowled blackly when she saw whom the visitor was.

"I wish to see Mr. Leith," he said, and the old woman silently motioned him to follow her into the sick man's room.

White as the pillows on which he lay, was Richard Leith, but there was a smile of peace on his face, for Gertrude was sitting in a chair by his bedside, and she had been telling him of the strange scene at Golden's burial that evening; how Bertram Chesleigh had claimed her as his wife, and the child for his own.

"Thank God! she was innocent and pure. Oh, how could I ever have doubted the child of my precious Golden," cried the bereaved father, in a passion of remorse and grief.

"You know the whole truth, now. Can you ever forgive me?" inquired Bertram, advancing.

"You here, Bertram Chesleigh? Oh, how could you have been so cruel?" exclaimed Mr. Leith, excitedly, as he rose on his elbow, and looked at the pale face and gleaming eyes of the intruder.

"I will tell you all the truth, and perhaps you will understand me better," began Bertram Chesleigh, eagerly, but before the words were ended, a terrible change came over his face. It was distorted by contortions of pain, and with a shrill cry of agony he fell to the floor in strong convulsions.

Gertrude sprang from her chair with a frightened shriek that brought Dinah rushing into the room with her old master close at her heels, followed by the hired nurse who had the care of Mr. Leith.

"This man is dying--bring a doctor at once!" cried Gertrude, shrilly.

"The doctor is here, madam," said the pleasant voice of the physician himself, who had just entered the door on his usual daily visit to Mr. Leith. "Why, what have we here?"

He bent down over the tall, superb form that lay upon the floor writhing in a violent fit.

There were a few moments of busy silence while he worked over the patient, then he looked up with a dark frown on his broad brow.

"Who is this man, and how came he here?" he inquired.

"He is my son-in-law, doctor, and he had barely entered the room when he fell in a fit," said Richard Leith. "What ails him?"

Another dire contortion of the prostrate form, and the busy physician answered, sternly:

"He has all the symptoms of arsenical poisoning."

* * * * *

The hovering night fell rainy, dark, and cheerless. The skillful physician worked steadily, anxiously, and patiently, trying to save from the grasp of the fell destroyer the writhing victim of Elinor Glenalvan's deadly hate and wicked revenge.

Everyone was filled with grief and sorrow. All warring passions, all human resentments were forgotten in the anxiety with which they watched the wavering balance in which Bertram Chesleigh lay fluctuating between life and death.

Arsenic had been administered to him in a draught of wine, declared the physician, and the wonder arose who had given it to him.

Someone started the theory that he had taken it himself, with intent to commit suicide.

Then they searched him, but not a grain of the deadly drug was discovered on his person. It was all a baffling mystery.

They had left him mourning despairingly over little Golden's grave, and they had seen him no more until he had come to them in this awful condition.

"If I had not come in at the moment I did, no earthly power could have saved him," declared the physician; "As it is, I hope--mind, I only say hope--that I may save his life."

At midnight Gertrude stole to the outer door for a breath of fresh air. She felt faint, weary and dispirited.

The death of Golden, whom she had learned to love very deeply, had deeply grieved her saddened heart.

"Poor child," she moaned, sitting down on the marble steps and gazing sadly at the silver crescent of the young moon as it struggled through a bank of clouds; "she has had a fate as tragic and sad as her poor young mother's."

The sound of muffled footsteps on the grass caused Gertrude to start up with a sudden cry.

A youth was coming toward her, and his low, entreating "stay, madam," arrested her contemplated flight.

He came close to her side, and as his rough garments brushed the stone ballustrade, the cool, moist smell of newly thrown up earth came distinctly to her senses.

She shivered and thought of that new-made grave lying in the silence and calm of the dewy night.

"Will you tell me if Mr. Chesleigh is here, ma'am?" he inquired, respectfully.

"Yes, he is here. What can you want of Mr. Chesleigh at this unseemly hour of the night?" she inquired, in wonder.

"I have important business with him," said the youth, and Gertrude thought she detected a trembling, as of fear, in his voice. "Can I see him a moment, if you please?"

"No, you cannot, for he is ill and unconscious, and we fear that he is dying," she replied.

A smothered exclamation escaped from the youth's lips.

"Oh, this is dreadful!" he said, as if unconscious of having a listener. "What shall we do now?"

"Can I help you?" asked Gertrude, gently.

He bent toward her eagerly.

"Oh, madam, you are a friend of the poor lady that was buried this afternoon?" he said, almost fearfully.

"Yes," she answered, with a quickened heart-beat.

"Then come with me, for God's sake. There is not a minute to lose. Don't be afraid. No harm shall come to you."

So impressed was Gertrude by the youth's strange eagerness that she followed him without a word across the green lawn, through the wide gate, and along the winding road.

"Not here!" she said, aghast, as he paused at the white gate of the Glenalvan burying ground.

"Yes, even here," he answered, solemnly; and the gate-latch clicked softly beneath his hand. "Follow me, lady. No harm shall happen you."