But though he refused to reveal the secret, Richard Leith felt morally certain that it was to some of the family of John Glenalvan the young man owed the attempted destruction of his life. He had heard that Elinor had "set her cap" at him.
This, then, was the dreadful revenge she had taken for her disappointment.
The physician went away and left them together. Then the lawyer told his son-in-law his whole sad story. Bertram's indignation knew no bounds.
"May the curse of an offended God rest upon John Glenalvan's head!" he exclaimed. "It is to him and his family that my poor Golden owes the bitter sorrows of her brief life. My sister's maid, Celine, confessed that it was Elinor Glenalvan who discovered Golden's identity, and bribed her to send her away under a ban of disgrace. Oh, God, Leith, could I only have known that the girl little Ruby loved so dearly, and who shunned me so persistently, was my deserted wife, how joyously would I have taken her to my heart and claimed her for my own."
"Yes, if you had only known," Richard Leith replied, with mournful emphasis. "My poor young daughter, hers indeed was a hard lot. Scorned by her kindred, deserted by her husband, despised and disowned by her miserable father! How glad she must have been to creep into the kindly shelter of the grave! Ah, Heaven, Chesleigh, I never can forget my own wretched share in breaking that tender heart."
His head sank back on his pillow, and almost womanly tears coursed over his pale cheeks.
"But she forgave me before she died," he continued, pathetically, after a little. "She was an angel, Chesleigh. I can never forget how sweet and patient she was. The day before she died they carried me into her room. I lay on a couch by the side of her bed. They showed me the beautiful little waxen image—the babe that had never drawn a single breath of life in this world, and I could not keep from crying when they said her terrible fall had killed the child. The minister came, and told her that she must die in a few hours, too. But was it not strange, Chesleigh? She smiled sadly and shook her head."
"'No, you are all mistaken,' she said. 'I should not be sorry to die, but my time has not come yet. I cannot die until I know whether I shall meet my mother in Heaven, or whether she is still on earth.'
"But that night she passed away peacefully in her sleep. It was so calm and gradual we did not know when the end had come. It was like those sweet lines of Hood: