Geoffrey's Victory by Mrs Georgie Sheldon — page 176: what you’re looking at

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

172 JACK’S STORY CONTINUED. and it was nigh this very spot—just there by that clump of spruce, where I was hid when you came—that we plighted our troth. Ah! my girl! my girl!” ‘Lhe poor man broke down completely here, and scbbed like a child, and Geoffrey’s eyes were full of tears, 100, as he witnessed his emotion and realized what he must have suffered during the checkered life that he had led. He had been deeply touched by the faithfulness and de- votion which he had exhivited in his vare of him during all those years while he was such a helpless burden, mentally, on his hands. He saw that tne man was naturally honorable and kind- hearted, and that he would never have been guilty of the crime which he had just confessed, but for the misfor- tunes that led him into evil company and to the use of intoxicating drinks, “Tm a broken-down old man, sir,” Jack said, after struggling hard for self-control, “or I never’ should blub- ber like this; but this place brings back those old days when my conscience was free—when life was bright and full of hope before me and my girl, and 16 seems more’n IT can bear. It’s wonderful, though, that I should run across. ye here! Oh, sir, I did yea woeful wrong, in my anger and jealous fit, when ye were a child. I’ve no right to expect it, but ’twould comfort my poor old heart more’n I could tell ye, if I could hear ye say ye don’t lay it up ag’in me.” Geoffrey turned frankly toward the humble supplant beside him. “T do not, Jack,” he said, heartily ; ‘‘vou were the vic- tim of drink, and were hardly accountable for the deeds of that night; you condemn yourself more than you really deserve, for if you have told me everything just as it occurred, your wife did not die by your hand—her death was caused by an accident.” The man shook his head sadly. ‘No, no,” he said; “I can’t get it off my conscience that it was murder: forif I hadn’t laid hands on her she might have been living to-day.” “Still it was not willful or premeditated,” Geoffrey per- sisted. “ However,” he added, “I freely forgive you for your share in my misfortune, if that will be any comfort to you.” “Thank ye, sir: thank ye; and if there is a God, I thank Him, too, that I’ve been allowed to set eyes on ye COMmicloooks (C(O)