“Yes, I recollect that there was a man named Jack”—another violent start confirmed Geoffrey’s suspicions—“who was not always good to me, and whom I feared and—you are Jack!”
This was something of a shot at random, but it told instantly.
The man sank to the ground, trembling and unnerved, his face blanched with fear, while great beads of perspiration started out upon his forehead.
“Good Heaven! I am lost! Have I come back after all these years, just to get caught like a rat in a trap?” he cried, brokenly. “But,” he went on, crouching lower among the tall grass and weeds, “I never meant ye any harm, Master Geoffrey. It was the drink that did it; it crazed my brain, and I never really knew I done ye such injury, or that I’d killed the girl I loved, till hours after ’twas all over.”
Geoffrey grew pale now, at this revelation.
It was far more than he dreamed of extorting when he had charged the man with his identity.
He was so excited that it was with difficulty he could compose himself sufficiently to speak. But after a moment or two he said:
“Well, Jack, since it is you, and we have recognized each other, you may as well make a clean breast of the whole story. Owing to the kindness which I had received, the injury which you did me has not resulted so seriously as it might have done; but poor Margery!”
“Boy—boy—ye will drive me crazy if ye talk like that,” Jack cried, in a voice of horror. “I tell ye, I loved the girl, and I’d never have lifted my hand agin her—I’d have cut it off first, though we didn’t always agree—but for the drink; and if I could only look into her good face once more, and hear her say, ‘Jack, I forgive ye!’ I’d be willin’ to lay down in the grave beside her, though Heaven knows I’ve never even seen the spot where she’s buried.”
Great sobs choked the man’s utterance, while tears rolled over his weather-beaten cheeks and dropped upon the ground.