"I am sorry for you, my father," she said. "You have been weak and imprudent, but not sinful, as I thought. But, oh, my poor mother! My heart is torn over her wretched fate. She must have perished miserably, or we should have heard from her ere now. Oh, father, what shall we do?"
They looked at each other with dim, miserable eyes, this strangely reunited father and daughter, the awful mystery of the wife and mother's fate chilled their hearts.
He took her hand and drew her gently nearer to him.
"My child, I shall go to Glenalvan Hall and confront John Glenalvan with his sin. I believe the whole key to the mystery lies in that villain's hands."
"I am almost sure of it," she replied. "He hated my mother, and he hated me. I will go with you. What joy it will be to stand up proudly before him and tell him that my birth was honest and honorable, and that my father is a good and true man, who is glad to see me, for you are glad, aren't you?" she asked him, pleadingly.
"Yes, dear, I am very glad. I have always longed to have a child of my own to love. It seemed as if my heart was always yearning for the daughter I believed to be dead. But Golden," he looked at her anxiously and pleadingly as he clasped her little hand, "you have a story of your own to tell me before we go on the quest for your mother. The great mystery of love has come to you already in your tender youth. Tell me, my daughter, are you a wife?"
The crimson color flushed into her cheeks, then receded, leaving her deathly pale again.
Tears rose into the great, blue eyes, and trembled on the long-fringed lashes.
Her lips parted and closed again without a sound.
"Tell me, Golden," he urged, anxiously; "are you a wife, or has some artful villain deceived you? If so——" he clenched his hand, and the lightnings of passion flashed from his somber, dark eyes.