Geoffrey's Victory by Mrs Georgie Sheldon — page 193: what you’re looking at

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

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 189 near friends, for he talked of putting you to some school as soon as you were old enough to go away from me.” “Do you think tbat everything was allright between him and my mother ?” “ How right, sir?” the woman asked, with surprise. “Do you think that they were legally married? Did you never see or hear anything while you lived with them, to make you suspect that they might not be. hus: band and wife? Itisa hard question for a son to ask, but the secrecy, with which my father has seemed to hedge himself about, has led me to fear that there was gonie grave reason why he could not, or wouid not, have me with him and openly recognize me. Why was he unwilling to have you use his name if you had occasion to write to him, but instead gave youa blind address, which no one could recognize, and to which, doubtless, he alone had the key ?” “Good lord, Master Geoffrey, never have any such thoughts entered my head before!” Margery exclaimed, in atone of startled amazement. “I never saw a Inan fonder of his wife than Captain Dale was of vour mother ; and he had reason to be fond of her, too, for she wor- shiped the very air he breathed, and was always so sweet and merry that a man would have been a brute not to have loved her. But——” “Well?” queried Geoffrey, eagerly. the hot blood surg- ing to his brow, with a feeling of dread, as she stopped, a note of sudden conviction in her tone. ‘““Well, I do remember, once, that she did not seem quite happy, but I have never given it a second thought until now,” Margery said, reflectively. “'Tell me about it,” the young man commanded, briefly. “They had been out fora walk one night after tea, and it was quite dark when they returned. They stopped a moment on the steps, before coming in, and I Was at an open window up stairs just above them. Your mother had been crying—I could tell by the sound of her voice— all at once she turned and threw her arms around the captain’s neck and sobbed : | “Oh, Willi, I wish you would, for my sake and—for our babv’s sake.’ ‘““T will, my darling,’ the captain told her, ‘it shall be done just as soon as 1 can turn myself, but it would ruin meto doit now. Have patience, my pet, and if will be all right in afew months more, at the furthest.’ “She didn’t say another word, only uttered a tired eGom GEhboo S (