"You were wrong to take such a vow, Golden, and it is almost wicked for you to keep it. Do you see how much is at stake? Through your silence a man and his wife are divided in anger and shame, and a cloud of the blackest disgrace is lowering over your own head. Do you know that it is a fearful thing to come between husband and wife?"
"I feel its enormity in the very depths of my heart," she replied, shuddering and weeping.
"Then surely you will speak; you must speak," he urged.
But she only shook her head.
"Not if I command you to do so?" he asked.
"Not if you command me," she replied, with mournful firmness.
There was a moment's silence, and Richard Leith gazed upon the girl with a sick and shuddering heart.
A vague suspicion was beginning to steal into his mind.
What if Golden was deceiving him, and Mrs. Desmond's belief were true?
He reeled before the sickening horror of the thought. The dread suspicion seemed to float in fiery letters before his eyes.