"Between you and me, Leith, I believe she had a great heiress booked for the young fellow in New York."
He paused for breath, but at Richard Leith's look of impatience, went on hastily:
"Bertram did not reply to his sister's letter, but in the latter part of the same month Fred Glenalvan wrote us that Bertram was lying ill with brain fever.
"We went to him at once and found him not expected to live, He was delirious, and through all his illness he called incessantly on one name. Morning, noon and night it was always, 'Golden, Golden, Golden.'"
A groan forced itself through Richard Leith's rigid lips, but he did not speak, and Mr. Desmond continued:
"That cry for Golden was always coupled with a wild appeal for forgiveness for some wrong, the nature of which we could not determine.
"My curiosity and that of my wife were powerfully excited, and we wondered who the Golden was that he called upon, and why she never came.
"It was quite evident that the Glenalvans did not care to divulge the secret, so we never presumed to ask, but when Bertram grew convalescent Edith inquired of him, and he told her the truth."
"Let me hear it," said Richard Leith, gaspingly, while the knotted veins stood out like cords on his forehead.
"It was the same story your daughter told you—that of a fair young girl kept aloof from her kind, slighted and scorned for no visible fault."