A bursting sob checked the rest of her speech.
"Golden, before I tell you your mother's story, I must receive your own confession. Dinah has told me all the beginning of your acquaintance with my son's visitor. You must now give me the history of what further intercourse has passed between you. How comes it that my little Golden, whom I deemed so true and pure, broke her promise to old Dinah?"
The beautiful face drooped from his gaze, overspread with warm, crimson blushes. No words came from the sweet, tremulous red lips.
"A promise, child, no matter how humble the person to whom it is made, should be held perfectly sacred and inviolate," he continued. "I could not have believed that you, the child I had reared so carefully, could have been so ignoble as to falsify your promise."
[CHAPTER XI.]
Beautiful Golden sobbed wildly at the reproachful words of her grandfather.
"Grandpa, I didn't mean it," she wept. "Indeed, indeed, I intended to keep my promise to black mammy. It was quite by accident that I broke it."
"How could it have been by accident?" inquired the old man, incredulously.
"Do you remember my habit of sleep-walking?" she inquired.