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

Richard Leith sprang to his feet and confronted the intruder. His dark eyes blazed with wrath as he answered:

"I am Richard Leith, the husband of Golden Glenalvan, whom you falsely reported dead to gain some wicked end of your own. Liar, I have found you out in your sin! I demand my wronged wife at your hands."

John Glenalvan glared lividly at the daring man who thus boldly confronted him with his sin.

The blood retreated from his face and lips, and his eyes were wild and startled.

"Answer me," cried Richard Leith, advancing upon him. "Where is Golden, my wife?"

"You lie! She was never your wife," John Glenalvan retorted, furiously.

"Shame upon you, John, to malign the fair name of your sister," cried his father, indignantly. "Rather rejoice that she is proved innocent at last."

"Let him prove her so, if he can," cried the wretch, maliciously.

"I can do so. Here is the certificate of my marriage to Golden Glenalvan in New York sixteen years ago, replied Richard Leith, unfolding a yellowed paper and holding it open before the eyes of the father and son.

"Then she was really your wife," John said, with unwilling belief.

"Of course she was my wife. How dared you think evil of your own sister?" demanded the lawyer, scornfully.

"I do not answer to you for my thoughts, sir," replied John Glenalvan, angrily.

"But you must answer to me for the deed which has deprived me of my wife and child for fifteen years," cried Richard Leith. "John Glenalvan, where is my wife?"

"How should I know?" he retorted.

"It is too late to fence with me," answered Richard Leith. "You, and you alone, are at the bottom of my wife's mysterious disappearance. You have either shut her up in solitary confinement, or you have murdered her!"

"Murdered her! How dare you hint at such a thing?" John Glenalvan thundered, growing white with fear.

"I dare do more," cried the lawyer, driven to desperation. "If you do not tell me what has become of my wife I will have you arrested for her murder."

At these warning words John Glenalvan threw himself upon his accuser with the cry of an infuriated wild beast.

Richard Leith was weak and ill. He had risen from a sick-bed, on which wasting anxiety and grief had thrown him, when he came to Glenalvan Hall.

He went down like an infant before the strong fury of his opponent, and the old man's wailing cry pierced the air.

"John, hold your hand! For God's sake, do not murder the man!"

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.