Geoffrey's victory;

by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

No one had ever lived in it since the poor young mother died, one of the older inhabitants of the village told him. It was believed that the same gentleman owned it still, though he had not been seen there for years, and would not allow any one else to occupy it. It seemed as if he deemed the place too sacred to be invaded by strangers, and so had preferred to sacrifice it to desolation and decay.

Everet passed through the small yard, now thickly overgrown with vines and brambles, to the tiny porch, and looked in through the side-lights of the front door.

The doors on each side of the small hall were all open, and the place was bare and forlorn in the extreme, and in strange and gloomy contrast with that luxurious little nest near the old mill at home, that had been Annie Dale’s former home.

He went around the house, peeping in at each window; but there was nothing to be seen save bare floors, and walls from which the rich paper, that had once adorned them, was falling away, while every nook and corner was infested with dust and cobwebs.

He came back again, after a time, to the front porch, where he sat down upon one of the steps, wondering where he should turn next to pick up the thread which seemed to have suddenly broken and vanished from sight again here.

He sat there a long time pondering the mystery—who was the man who had called himself William Dale?—whither had he gone after leaving that place, and which way should he—Everet Mapleson—turn now to hunt him 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 with a 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 discouragement to return to the public house where he was staying and to seek his new friend, Bob Whittaker.

But, owing to the cramped position in which he had been sitting, one 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 circulation began to reassert itself irritated him, when, without the slightest warning, the step on which he was standing gave way and he was unceremoniously precipitated into the rank grass and among the brambles which grew all about it.