“Still it was not willful or premeditated,” Geoffrey persisted. “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 once more, and in yer right mind, too,” was the fervent response.
“I reckon,” he continued, after a moment of thought, “it might be called the work of Providence that I lost ye there in New York, for if ye’d gone with me to Australia, I doubt that ye’d ever been cured, and I’m right sure ye’d never been the gentleman that ye are. I’d thank ye to tell me about the good man that befriended ye.”
“I will, Jack, presently, but I first want to ask you a few more questions about the past.”
“All right, sir: anything I can tell ye, ye shall know.
“Well, then, I’d like you to describe the man who was my father,” Geoffrey said, gravely.
Jack turned to look upon the young man beside him.
“The best description ye could get of him’d be to go and look at yerself in the glass,” he said, studying Geoffrey’s face and form, “for ye’re as nigh like him as another man could be, when I first saw him after he brought that pretty little woman to live here. He’d been off to meet her somewhere, and he’d shaved off all his heavy beard, had his hair trimmed up in the fashion, and wore a dandy suit o’ clothes.”
“His name was Dale, you say? Are you sure that was his true name?” the young man asked.
“I couldn’t take my oath as to that, sir, but everybody here knew him as Captain William Dale, though I don’t know how he came to be a captain. She used to call him ‘Will,’ in a way that made his eyes shine enough to do ye good.”