Chapter XLVIII

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.