He ran up to Mrs. Leith's dressing-room, and found it in some slight disorder, as if traveling bags had been hurriedly packed.
Amid the dainty litter of the dressing-table he saw a square envelope addressed to himself, and hurriedly tore it open.
His gaze ran over the few pathetic words daintily penciled on the perfumed, satiny sheet.
"Richard," she wrote. "I have gone away from you. I have long felt that I had but a small share in your heart, and now I know that I have, perhaps, no right to your name, and no place in your home. So it is best that I should leave you. I have taken little Golden with me. There is one thing, at least, that I can do. I can be a mother to the child whose father has disowned her, and whose mother is so tragically lost.
"You were wrong, Richard. The child has been wronged, but I believe that she is innocent. I have loved you more than you knew; perhaps more than you cared, and for your sake I will care for your forlorn child. You will not seek for us. We are companions in misery, and you will respect our grief. I cannot tell you where we shall go. But if you find little Golden's mother I shall know it, and the mother shall have her child."
With the simple name, "Gertrude," the letter ended; Richard Leith reread it slowly, filled with a great surprise and wonder.
"She will care for the child I treated so heartlessly," he murmured. "God bless her. I did not know that Gertrude could be so true and noble. I have wronged her indeed, and she has worn the mask of carelessness and frivolity over a wounded heart. Oh, God, if I only knew where to find them."
He almost cursed himself for his cruelty to his wronged and miserable daughter.
He remembered how young she was, and how ignorant of the world when Bertram Chesleigh had won her heart. Perhaps she was not to blame. His wrath waxed hot against the man who had betrayed her guileless innocence.