"I will double the amount if you will do your work over to-night. I _must_ see her. I am mad for one last look at my darling's face!" The grave-digger shuddered. "Oh, sir, it is too late," he said. "Have you forgotten how soon death's touch blasts everything human? And the little babe--_that_ was dead long before _she_ was. I know you could not bear to see them now." "Hush, hush!" the mourner cried, in a voice of agony. "I will hear no more. Go, now, and leave me!" "Cheer up, sir," said the man, with a strange gleam in his eyes, as he turned to go. "The Lord may have some blessing in store for you yet, sir." His only answer was a hollow groan from the wretched man. He threw himself face downward on the green grave, crushing all the sweet lilies and immortelles beneath his shuddering frame, and cried out to Heaven to kill him because he had blighted Golden's innocent life. He lay there an hour or two, musing sorrowfully over the hapless fate of his beautiful girl-bride. He recalled their brief, happy love-dream from which they had been so rudely awakened. Over and over again he cursed himself for that first impulse of pride and selfishness that had made him false to his bride in the hour when he should have protected and shielded her. A passionate, despairing longing to see her again filled his soul. "I will go back and wander by the lake again," he resolved, in the madness of his despair. "It was there that we spent our sweetest, most blissful hours. In the calm and silence of the night I will dream them over again." He went to the lake, but the very spirit of unrest was upon him. The stars came forth and shone weirdly in the sky, the perfume of spring flowers sweetened the air. He grew restless and fanciful. Such a brief while ago she had stolen nightly from the haunted rooms to meet him here beside the silvery lake. It almost seemed that she would come to him presently, gliding like a fairy across the green lawn to the glad shelter of his arms. Some impulse prompted him to seek the haunted rooms, to spend an hour of solitary musing in their quiet shade. He knew of a retired stairway by which he could make his way unperceived, and following the blind fate that led him, he went up to the hall and up the narrow, secluded stairs which little Golden had shown him, and by which she had obtained egress to her lover. He went along the dark corridor with a strangely beating heart, and paused before the closed door of the haunted room. He placed his hand on the knob, but to his surprise it refused to yield to his touch. Disappointed, he was about turning away, when a heavy step crossed the floor inside, the key clicked in the lock, and the door was cautiously opened. A flood of light streamed out into the corridor, and showed Bertram Chesleigh the tall form, and dark, saturnine face of John Glenalvan. There was a moment of complete astonishment on the part of each of the two men.