Geoffrey's Victory by Mrs Georgie Sheldon — page 152: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

148 EVERET MAKES A STARTLING DISCOVERY. _No one had ever lived in it since {he peor young mother died, one of the older inhabitants of the village told him. It was believed that the san.e gentlen.an owned Ht ostill, though he had not been seen there for years, and would not allow any one else to cecuy'y it. It seen ed as if he deemed the place too sacred to be invaded by strangers, and so had preferred to sacrifice it to desola- tion and decay. Everet passed through the small vard, now thickly overgrown with vines ard branibles, to the tiny porch, and looked in through the side-lights of the front door. The doors on each side of the sn all hall were all open, and the place was bare and forlorn im the extreme, ana in strange and gloomny contrast with that luxurious little nest near the old mill at home, that had been Annie Dale’s rormer home. He went around the house, peeping in at each wincow; but there was nothing to be seen save bare floors, and walls froin which the rich paper, that hed cnece adorned them, was falling away, while every nook and coiner as infested with dust and cobwels. He came back again, aftera time, to the front porch, where he sat down upon one of the steps, wondering where he shouid turn next to pick up the thread wtlich seemed to have suddenly broken and vanished from sight again here. He sat there a long time pondering the mystervy—who was the man who had ealled himself William Dale ?— whither had he gone after leavirg that place, and which way should he—Everet Mapleson—turn now to hunt liim down? But he could arrive at no definite conclusion; there was only one thing that he could think of to do to satisfy himself regarding the truth of a suspicion that haunted him continually, and that he shrank from witha feeling that was akin to horror; while it might result in nothing save making a fool of himself and becoming an object of ridicule and scorn. He arose at last, with a sigh of weariness and discour- agement to return to the public house where he was staying and to seek his new friend, Bob Whittaker. But, owing to the cramped posi ion in wich he had been sitting, cne of his feet had “gone to sleep,” and he found he could not walk a step. He stamped vigorously, and impatiently, too, for the intense prickling sensation with which circulatie»n began comiclooolks