"'We watched her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Went heaving to and fro.
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied;
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.'"
He ceased, and there was a heavy silence in the room. Bertram Chesleigh broke it in a hushed, low voice.
"Poor, martyred child! Was she, then, so anxious to find her mother?"
"She declared that it was the one dream of her life-time," Richard Leith replied.
"And there is no clew save that which John Glenalvan holds?" inquired Bertram, thoughtfully.
"None, and the villain has fled. I do not believe his own wife and children know aught of his whereabouts."
A look of grave determination swept over Bertram's handsome, pallid face.
"Then I will take up the quest where it dropped from Golden's little hand in dying. I will track the villain, if it is to the end of the world. It shall be my task to vindicate her mother's memory," he said, gravely and earnestly.
"It is my task rather," said Richard Leith.
"We will join hands in the effort," his son-in-law answered.