Very thin, and sad, and mournful looked the old man as he sat in his easy-chair, with his lonely thoughts fixed ever on the past. He was old and weary. Life held no charm for him now.
One thought of the last lonely sheaf waiting for the reaper as he sat with his withered hands folded, and that look of patient grief on his thin, white, aged face.
"Oh, my lost little Golden," he murmured aloud: "She tarries long. The quest for her mother is a weary one. Oh, that God would give me back the mother and child, both innocent and pure as when I lost them."
A sudden shadow fell between him and the light. He looked up and saw a man standing before him, a man with a pale, worn, troubled face, and dark eyes that held the story of a tragedy in their somber depths.
"Pardon," he said, "I have ventured unannounced into your presence. My name is Richard Leith."
The old man stared at him with dim, unrecognizing eyes. That name conveyed no meaning to his mind. He had never heard it before.
"You are a stranger," he said.
"Yes," Richard Leith answered, and stood silent a moment.
How should he tell Hugh Glenalvan that he was the man who had stolen his daughter from him and desolated his life?
It was a hard task. His voice quivered and broke as he said: