All eyes were fixed on his dark, demoniac face as he proceeded. Every heart hung trembling on his further words.
At last the fearful mystery of little Golden's fate would be known to those who loved and mourned her.
Old Dinah had stolen silently in, and sat crouching in a corner, her beady, black eyes fixed intently on the face of the man whom she had always distrusted.
"Speak," Richard Leith thundered, almost mad with impatience. "Speak! You know she never came to me. Where is she now, my poor, wronged darling?"
"Is she dead or living?" echoed the wronged woman's father.
"She is dead!" John Glenalvan answered, coldly.
"Dead!" they echoed, despairingly.
"She has been dead these sixteen years," he answered.
"Vile wretch, then you murdered her," cried Richard Leith, struggling frantically in Bertram Chesleigh's strong hold.