The long, weary night, filled with mortal agony to poor little Golden, slowly wore away.
At the earliest peep of dawn a messenger arrived from the town with a telegram for Mr. Leith.
He lay barely conscious on his pillow, breathing heavily and slow, and the physician read the message to him cautiously.
It was from Mr. Desmond, and ran briefly:
"We arrived in New York this hour. Is Golden with you? Bertram is half-crazed with anxiety."
And across the lightning wires the fatal message flashed back to their anxious hearts:
"Golden is here. Her child is dead and she is dying."
Dying! This was the end of that brief dream of love, those weary months of supreme self-sacrifice.
Whiter than the pillow on which she lay, beautiful Golden was breathing her sad young life out in heavy sighs and moans, while hidden carefully out of sight beneath its white linen sheet, "There lay the sweet, little baby that never had drawn a breath."