Little Golden's Daughter; or, The Dream of a Life Time

"Wrong you!" Mrs. Desmond cried, "are you not then–" she bent and fairly hissed the remaining words into the girl's ear. Golden threw up her hands with a cry of dismay.

"Oh, my God, this is too horrible!" she wailed, "how can I bear it?"

"Did I not speak the truth?" Mrs. Desmond demanded.

"It is true, madam, I cannot deny it," replied the girl, crimson with burning blushes, "but I—oh, I call Heaven to witness my truth, Mrs. Desmond, I am nothing to your husband, I was—was—married before I came to you."

"Then where is your husband?"

"I cannot tell," faltered the white lips.

"That is strange," said Mrs. Desmond, scornfully. "Has he left you?"

"Yes, madam," with a pitiful droop of the fair head.

"Why did he do so?" inquired the lady

"I cannot tell you," Golden murmured, sorrowfully.

Ah, if Mrs. Desmond had only known the truth, that it was her brother's wife kneeling there ashamed and dejected before her. But she did not dream it, and her anger rose at the girl's unsatisfactory replies to her questions.

"I will not ask you any more questions," she said, "I do not wish to hear more of your weak falsehoods. Get up from there, and go. Leave the house now and at once, before I publish your conduct to everyone. You need not go to Mrs. Markham for sympathy. I shall go to her at once and tell her what you are."

Golden stood still, staring at her blankly a moment. She was dazed and frightened at the shameful suspicion that had fallen upon her, and she did not know how to convince Mrs. Desmond of her innocence.

"Oh, madam, if I could only induce you to believe that I am not the vile creature you think me," she cried in anguish.

"Hush; leave the room!" Mrs. Desmond answered stormily. "Go, and take with you the bitterest curse of an injured woman. May the good God speedily avenge my cruel wrongs!"

She crossed to the door, threw it open, and pointed silently to it.

Golden obeyed the mute sentence of her lifted finger and glided out, a forlorn, little figure, feeling almost annihilated by the vivid lightning of Mrs. Desmond's angry eyes.

The door slammed heavily behind her, and she walked along through the brightly lighted hotel corridor, for the twilight had fallen long ago.

The rain was falling heavily, and Golden shrank and trembled at the thought of encountering the black, inclement night. The thought came to her—why should she go?

She was ill, friendless, almost penniless. It was her husband's right to protect her.

And here she was passing his very door. Should she not appeal to him for comfort in this terrible hour?

Her trembling limbs refused to carry her past his door. She turned the handle with a weak and trembling hand and stepped over the threshold.

CHAPTER XXX

When Golden on the impulse of the moment had entered the room that she knew was Bertram Chesleigh's, she stood frightened and trembling inside the closed door, afraid to look up at first at the man who had treated her so cruelly.

Gathering courage at the shuddering remembrance of the terrors that awaited her in the darkness of the gloomy night outside, she looked up at last, determined to make at least one appeal to her husband.

The gas had been lighted and it threw a flood of brightness over every object in the room.

On a sofa at the further end Bertram Chesleigh lay sleeping in a careless position, as if he had just thrown himself down, wearied and overcome with fatigue.

The jet-black hair was tossed carelessly back from his high, white brow, and the thick, dark lashes lay heavily upon his cheeks, as if his slumber was deep and dreamless.

A small table was drawn closely to his side, littered with writing materials, and a pen with the ink scarcely dried upon it, lay beside a letter just stamped and sealed, and addressed to:

Richard Leith.

No. – Park Avenue, New York.

As Golden glided across the room, and paused, with her small hand resting upon the table, the superscription of the letter caught her eyes by the merest chance. She started, caught it up in her hand and scanned it eagerly.

"Richard Leith," she read, and her voice trembled with eagerness. "How strange! Why is he writing to Richard Leith?"

She glanced at the sleeper, but not the quiver of an eyelash betrayed disturbance at her presence.

She drew a slip of paper toward her, and neatly copied the address from the letter, placing it securely in her little purse.

Then she paused, turning another wistful glance from the letter which she still held in her hand, to the pale, handsome face of the husband who had discarded her because she had been born to a heritage of shame.

She wondered again if Bertram Chesleigh knew Richard Leith, and why he had written to him, but no thought of the truth came into her mind, or how gladly she would have flown to the quiet sleeper and folded him in her loving arms, and sobbed out her gladness on his broad breast.

Instead she stood gazing at him a few moments in troubled silence, the tear-drops hanging like pearls on her thick, golden lashes, her breast heaving with suppressed sighs.

Then she turned and went out of the room, her first impulse to awaken him having been diverted into another course by her opportune discovery of the address of the man whom she believed to be her father.

"Bertram would only despise and defy me if I appealed to him, perhaps," she murmured, "I will seek my misguided mother instead."

She gave him one sad, reproachful glance and hurried out of the room.

As she closed the door it inadvertently slammed and awakened the sleeper. He started up, confusedly passing his hand across his brow, and looking up for the person whom he supposed had entered the room.

"I distinctly heard the door slam," he said to himself. "Someone either entered or left the room."

But as no one appeared, he concluded that someone had entered, and finding him asleep, had gone out again.

He crossed to the door and looked out into the lighted corridor.

No one was visible, and he was about to close the door again, when his sister Edith came suddenly in sight.

He waited until she came up to him, her dark silk dress rustling as she moved hurriedly along.

"Come in, Edith," he said. "I am sorry I was asleep when you came in just now. Why did you not awaken me? I was only dozing. The closing of the door awakened me instantly."

She looked up at him in surprise, and then he saw that her brilliant face was quite pale, and her dark eyes had a strange, unnatural glare in them.

"I have not been in your room since morning," she replied. "What made you think so, Bert?"