Geoffrey’s eyes lighted at this.
It was evident that Captain Dale had truly loved the girl whom he had brought there, whether she had been his legal wife or not.
“Do you know what her name was before he married her?” he asked.
“No, sir; that is one of the things I can’t tell ye; even Margery never found out that. They was both very shy of talkin’ about themselves afore folks, and nobody ever knew where they came from, either.”
“Did they never have visitors—was there no friend whoever came to see them?”
“No, sir; and they didn’t seem to want anybody; she was just his world, and he her’n. My girl used to think it was kind of strange, though, that they never got any letters; but she never did, and never writ any, either.”
“Did she seem happy?” Geoffrey asked, in a hushed tone, as if this was ground he hardly liked to trespass upon.
“As chipper as a bird,” Jack returned; “and she could sing like one, too. Many’s the night the boys have stolen to yonder house to listen while she sang and played to the cap; he had a pianer sent up from Santa Fe; and she was always bright and smilin’; she was like a streak o’ sunshine in a dark place, for there wasn’t anybody like her anywhere about.”
Geoffrey felt his heart yearn wistfully for this sweet and gentle woman, who had been his mother, and who had brightened that wild and dreary place with her presence for one short year.
Still the mystery regarding his father, and her relations to him, seemed as dark as ever.