"Oh, not that!" she cried. "Tell me it is not true!" Again he had no answer for her, and Golden cried out reproachfully: "Grandpa, grandpa, why did you suffer her to be so wicked?" "It was through no fault of mine," he answered heavily. She looked at him in silent anguish a moment, then she asked him: "Where is she? Tell me where to find her, if you know." "John told me she was in New York the last time he heard of her; but that was years ago. I pray God that she may be dead ere this." And then he wrung his hands, and the tears rolled down his withered cheeks. "Oh, my lost little daughter, my precious little Golden," he moaned in agony. "How little I dreamed in your innocent babyhood that you were reserved for such a fate!" Golden was regarding him attentively. "Uncle John told you she was in New York," she said. "What did Uncle John know? Did he hate my mother as he hates me?" He looked at her, startled. "Hate your mother," he cried. "His own sister! No--of course not--that is, not until she fell!" "He hated her then?" asked Golden, musingly. "Yes, he hated her then. I believe he could have killed her." "He should have killed her betrayer," said Golden, who seemed suddenly to have acquired the gravity and thoughtfulness of a woman. "I would have killed him myself if I could have laid hands on the villain," said her grandfather, with sudden, irrepressible passion. The bitter grief and impatient wrath of the girl had sobered down into quietness more grievous than tears. Her face showed deathly white in the dim light; her lips were set in a line of intense pain; her pansy-blue eyes had grown black with feeling. She brought a low stool and sat down at her grandfather's feet, folding her white hands meekly in her lap, and drooping her fair head heavily. "Grandpa, I will not interrupt you again," she said. "I will sit here quite still, and listen. Now tell me all my mother's story." She kept her word. After he had told her all he had to tell, and she knew the whole tragic story of her mother's disgrace, she still sat there silently, with her dark eyes bent on her clasped hands. The cloud of shame and disgrace seemed to lower upon her head with the weight of the whole world. "You understand all I have told, my child?" he said to her, after waiting vainly for her to speak. She put her small hand to her head in a dazed, uncertain way. "Oh, yes, I think so," she replied. "But my head seems in a whirl. I will ask you just a few questions, grandpa, to make sure that I have understood." And then she seemed to fall into a "brown study." When she had collected her thoughts a little she began to question him. "I think you said that my mother eloped at sixteen with a handsome stranger whose acquaintance she had casually made in her long, lonely rambles in the woods. In a few weeks she wrote to you from New York that she was happily married. Am I right, grandpa?" "Yes," he replied.