"God forgive me for my weakness and selfishness," she cried, starting at her own thoughts. "May he live to find the happiness of which he has been cheated so long." The long, weary night, filled with mortal agony to poor little Golden, slowly wore away. At the earliest peep of dawn a messenger arrived from the town with a telegram for Mr. Leith. He lay barely conscious on his pillow, breathing heavily and slow, and the physician read the message to him cautiously. It was from Mr. Desmond, and ran briefly: "We arrived in New York this hour. Is Golden with you? Bertram is half-crazed with anxiety." And across the lightning wires the fatal message flashed back to their anxious hearts: "_Golden is here. Her child is dead and she is dying._" Dying! This was the end of that brief dream of love, those weary months of supreme self-sacrifice. Whiter than the pillow on which she lay, beautiful Golden was breathing her sad young life out in heavy sighs and moans, while hidden carefully out of sight beneath its white linen sheet, "There lay the sweet, little baby that never had drawn a breath." CHAPTER XLI. Into that splendid home in New York where the Desmonds had just arrived from Europe, that terrible telegram came like a thunder-clap. Bertram Chesleigh's repentant soul reeled in agony before it. "I am justly punished for my cowardly desertion of my darling," he groaned to his sister, to whom he had confided his sorrowful secret. "But, oh, God! how terribly I have suffered for the weakness and folly of an hour!" Edith, whose heart had been strangely changed and softened since her reconciliation with her husband, wept with him over the dreadful news. "Bertram, we must go to her," she said. "In death, if not in life, we must lift the shadow from the poor girl's memory. Elinor Glenalvan is going home to-day. Shall we accompany her?" "Yes; but do not tell her why we go. She hated my poor, little Golden," he answered, sighing heavily. Elinor wondered secretly over their going, but rejoiced also. She had gone abroad with them, had had a most delightful time, and she sighed to think that the end had come at last. But one thing grieved her most of all. All her arts and her beauty, added to Mrs. Desmond's influence, had failed to win Bertram Chesleigh. She almost hated him when she thought of going home to hear her mother's lamentations over her failure, and her sister's taunts. Her spirits rose at the welcome news that he was going south with her. Perhaps she might triumph yet. It was a hopeful augury that he was not willing to lose sight of her yet. Poor vain and artful Elinor! She did not dream of the real truth. She believed that Golden had been thrust out of her way forever. Strangely enough, though she had known the true cause of the Desmonds' separation, she had never been able to ferret out the reason of their reconciliation. Immediately after Mr. Desmond reached Italy his wife had summarily dismissed Celine.