"I am your little Golden's friend," she explained to him as they went along. "I came here with her and was waiting outside while she paid you a visit."
Old Dinah was bathing the wound of her unconscious mistress when they entered, and Richard Leith lay upon the floor watching her with dim, despairing eyes.
"Oh, Heaven, who has done this terrible deed?" Mrs. Leith cried wildly, as her eyes took in the dreadful scene.
"Gertrude," her husband cried out at the sound of her voice, and she knelt down by him weeping wildly.
"Oh, Richard, who is it that has killed you and your child?" she sobbed in anguish.
"It is John Glenalvan's dreadful work," he replied, then he looked into her face with dim, yearning eyes.
"Gertrude! I believe I am dying," he said faintly. "Will you forgive me before I die?"
"Forgive you?" she said. "Ah, Richard, do not think that I blamed you. You sinned ignorantly."
"Yes, ignorantly," he echoed, and a spasm of pain crossed his face an instant, then he said sadly: "But I did not mean that, Gertrude. I meant you must forgive me that I was careless and blind, that I did not prize your true heart more."
She put her white hand to her heart, and a look of pain came into the large, blue eyes, then she said with mournful pathos: