“No, nothing of any consequence; all that he could remember of his previous life was that he had lived with some people named Margery and Jack, and that his name was Geoffrey Dale——”
“Dale! Dale!” repeated Mrs. Mapleson, with a start. “There used to be a family of Dales living near Vue de l’Eau before I was married; at least there was a widow and her daughter, a girl named Annie. They were poor people; they lived in one of those cottages near the old mill, and after the mother died the girl suddenly disappeared, and was never heard of again.”
“Mother, what is this you are telling me?” cried young Mapleson, a strange look flashing over his face. “The girl went away and never came back?”
“Yes.”
“Where did she go? She must have had some especial place in view when she started.”
“She said she was going to Richmond to serve as governess in some family; that was the last I ever heard of her.”
Everet Mapleson’s eyes glowed.
“Aha!” he thought; “who knows but what I have at last found a clew to the fellow’s birth?
“Dale, Dale,” he, too, repeated thoughtfully, “wasn’t that the name of that queer old codger who was to have had Uncle Jabez’s fortune, if you and father didn’t fulfill the conditions of his will?”
“Yes, Robert Dale. He was a cousin of Uncle Jabez, and considerably younger than he, and I suppose he would have had all the money, if your father and I had been contrary.”