In the pocket of her best cashmere dress was a little purse filled with gold pieces of which no one knew but herself.
Bertram Chesleigh had given it to her in a happy, never-to-be-forgotten hour which now it almost killed her even to recall.
Almost staggering with weakness, Golden rose and silently and cautiously dressed herself in her blue cashmere dress and hat and jacket.
She decided not to take anything with her. It would be easier to purchase new things when she had arrived in New York.
When she was ready to go, Golden knelt down a moment and pressed her fair cheek lovingly and sorrowfully to the toil-worn wrinkled hand of her old black mammy.
She loved the old negress dearly. Under that homely black breast beat the only heart that had ever given a mother's love to the beautiful, forsaken child of poor, wronged and misguided little Golden.
Then with a lingering, loving, backward glance around, the girl left the room and proceeded to her grandfather's apartment.
The kind old man was asleep with a look of care and anxiety deeply imprinted on his pale, worn features.
Golden pressed her trembling lips to the thin, gray locks that straggled over the pillow, and her girlish tears fell on them, shining like jewels in the dim gleam of the night-lamp.
Then Golden stole away noiselessly. There was one more farewell to be said ere she set forth on the mission whose only clew lay in the crumpled card hidden away securely in the little purse of gold.