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

The vindictive wish came over her that he had died before he had spoken the brave words that had cleared the stain from the memory of the girl she had hated with such jealous fire and passion. She had yet to learn that every shadow had been cleared from Golden's name.

While she stood like a statue, and angrily regarded the striking scene, the others busied themselves with the restoration of the unconscious man.

Dinah brought cold water from a little spring, and bathed his face and hands. Gertrude held her smelling-salts to his nose.

In a short time he revived and looked about him with an agony of sorrow in his pale, drawn face. His first conscious thought was of his loved and deeply-wronged wife.

"She is dead," he groaned. "I shall never hear her sweet lips pronounce my pardon. Oh, God, did she leave me no message? Did she not curse me in dying for the woe I had wrought?"

They all stood aloof from him except Gertrude. She told him what he asked in a grave and gentle voice.

"She made no mention of you, Mr. Chesleigh. She was patient and brave to the last. She kept her vow of silence to the bitter end, and died with the story of her innocence untold."

"I, coward that I was, bound her to secrecy," he said, "but I did not dream then of what would happen after. I wish to God that she had spoken and vindicated her honor."

And again an expression of the deepest sorrow convulsed the dark, handsome face.

"She was too true and loyal to break her vow," answered Gertrude, tearfully. "I believe that the shame and sorrow of it all killed her. She was a martyr to her love."

He groaned and dropped his head upon his folded arms. There was silence, and every eye but Elinor's rested tearfully upon the low mound beneath which slumbered the poor girl who had died with the brand of the erring upon her, but who in this hour was proven guiltless and pure, as Gertrude had said, a patient martyr to affection.

"Oh, that I might have seen her even once," groaned Bertram Chesleigh, turning instinctively for comfort to the sweet, sympathetic face of Gertrude. "Oh, tell me, did she suffer in dying? Was she conscious?"

She shook her head.

"No, she passed from a quiet slumber into death. The change was so gradual we scarcely knew when she was gone."

"Gone!"

The word thrilled him with a keen and bitter pain. The sweet, child-wife he had loved so dearly was lost from his life forever. She was gone from a world that had used her harshly and coldly, to take her fitting place among the angels.

The soft wind sighing through the trees and the grass seemed to murmur her requiem: "Requiescat in pace."

He rose and stood among them, his heavy eyes turning to the sad, old face of the grandfather whom he had bereaved of his darling. He held out his hand to him humbly.

"She is gone from us, and I cannot sue for her pardon," he said, wistfully. "But will you not forgive me, sir, for the sorrow my weakness and pride brought upon her and you?"

But old Hugh Glenalvan's kindly blue eyes flashed upon him with a gleam of their youthful fire, and his voice quivered with anger and despair as he replied:

"I will never forgive you unless she should rise from the grave and forgive you too!"

"Ye must forgive as ye would be forgiven," said the gentle, admonitory voice of the man of God.

But the indignant old man shook off his suppliant hand.

"She was his wife, and he discarded and deserted her. There is no forgiveness for such a sin," he said, with fiery scorn, as he turned away.

They went away and left Bertram alone with the wronged and quiet dead.

Gertrude, in her gentle, womanly pity would fain have persuaded him to go home with them, but he refused to listen.

"Leave me to my lonely vigil here," he said, sorrowfully. "If her gentle spirit is yet hovering about she may accept my bitter grief and repentance as some atonement."

When they had all gone and left him he bowed his head with a bitter cry.

"Oh, Golden, my lost, little darling, only six feet of earth between us, and yet I shall never see you, speak to you, nor hear you again!"

A low, respectful cough interrupted the mournful tenor of his thoughts.

He glanced up and saw the old grave-digger leaning on his spade and regarding him wistfully.

"What are you waiting for, my man?" he inquired, feeling impatient at this seeming intrusion on his grief.

"If you please, sir, I have not yet finished throwing up the earth and shaping the mound," said the man, with some embarrassment.

A bitter cry came from Bertram Chesleigh's lips.

"What! would you bury her still deeper from my sight?" he cried. "Oh, rather throw off this heavy covering of earth and suffer me to look upon my darling one again."

The man stared at him half fearfully.

"Oh, sir, your sorrow has almost crazed you," he said. "You had better return to your friends and leave me here to finish my necessary work."

But a new thought, born of his grief and remorse, had come into the mind of the mourner.

"My man, look at me," he said, earnestly; "I want you to open this grave and let me see my wife again. You cannot refuse me when I pray you to do it. Only think! They have buried my child and I have never even seen its face. I must kiss the babe and its mother once, I cannot go away until I have done so."

"Oh, sir, surely you are going mad," the man cried, alarmed. "I have never heard of such a thing. I could not do it if I would. I could not take the coffin out alone."

"Let me help you," said the distracted mourner.

"What you wish is quite impossible, sir," faltered the man, anxiously; "let me beg you to go on to the hall, and leave me to finish my sad duty."

"You must not refuse me, it will break my heart," Bertram Chesleigh cried, "I will pay you well. See," he drew out a handful of shining gold pieces. "I will give you a hundred dollars if you will show me the faces of my wife and child."

The dull eyes of the grave-digger grew bright at that sight. He was poor, and a hundred dollars were wealth to him.

"I am sorry for you, sir, I wish I could do what you wish. That money would do my poor wife and children a deal of good. If you could wait until night," he said, lowering his voice and glancing significantly around him, "I might get help and do the job for you."

Some whispered words passed between them: then Bertram Chesleigh rose and passed out of the green graveyard, casting one yearning look behind him at the low grave that held his darling.

He bent his lagging footsteps toward old Glenalvan Hall, whose ivy-wreathed towers glistened picturesquely in the evening sunshine.

Bertram went in through the wide entrance, and crossing the level lawn walked along the border of the beautiful lake.

"It was here that we parted," he murmured to himself, in his sorrowful retrospection. "How beautiful, how happy she was, how full of love and trust. Oh, God, what dark spell came over me, and made me for twenty-four terrible hours false to my love and my vows? That old man was right. There is no forgiveness for such a terrible sin!"

Frederick Glenalvan saw him from the house, and came down to meet him.