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100 LITTLE GOLDEN'S DAUGHTER.
‘¢ Golden,” he said, ‘‘ what if I say that I will not receive you
as my daughter unless you consent to clear up this disgraceful
mystery that surrounds you?” : .
** You will not tell me so—you could not beso cruel,” she cried,
fearfully. . .
‘‘Only one word, Golden. The name of the man who has
wronged you. Tell me, that I may punish him,” :
“You must not, for I love him,” she moaned, despairingly. ~
‘“*You force me to believe that Mrs. Desmond was right, and
that you are a lost and guilty creature,” he said scathingly.
A long, low wail came from her lips, then she bowed her head
and remained silent. — a '
‘Do you still persist in this obstinate silence?” he asked.
‘“‘T must,” she answered faintly. co
‘*Go, then,” he thundered at her, ‘‘you are no child of mine.
J refuse you the shelter of my home, my name, and my heart.
I cannot believe that you are the child of my innocent little
Golden. Go, and never let me see your face again.”
And with the cruel words he turned and left the room.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
LitTLe GOLDEN stared at the closing door through which her
father had vanished, with blank, terror-filled eyes. To have
found him and lost him like this was too terrible.
She sat gazing before her like one dazed, with the angry words -
of her father still ringing in her ears, when a low. and fluttering
sigh recalled her to the fact of Mrs. Leith’s presence which. she
had forgotten for the moment in her anguish of soul.
’ She looked around shrinkingly at the fair woman who had
taken her mother’s place, and her mother’s name, dreading to
“meet a glance of scorn, even transcending that which her father
had cast upon he’, .
- Instead she zeet the beautiful, troubled eyes of her step-mother
fixed upon her with tenderest pity.
Mrs. Leith had been vain, careless, and frivolous all her life.
She had never known a care or sorrow in the whole course of »
her pleasant, prosperous existence.
The hard crust of selfishness and indifference had grown over
the better impulses of a nature that at the core was true, and
sweet, and womanly. a
The last hour with its strange revelations had been the
turning point in her life.
She realized with a shudder the dreadful position in which she
was placed. She was married to a man who, in all probability,
had a wife living. °
It was possible that she herself was almost as much an out-
cast as the wretched girl who crouched weeping on‘ the floor,
homeless, friendless, and forsaken, in the hour of her direst
need,
Never before had Mrs. Leith been brought face to face with a
real sorrow. She gazedw onderingly upon poor little Golden, the