Geoffrey's victory;

by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

She arose and drew her cloak about her preparatory to going back to the town with her companion.

Geoffrey insisted that she should ride, while he walked beside her and guided the horse.

He saw that she was very weary, as well as weak, from her recent agitation, and not fit to walk the long distance.

She demurred at first, but he would listen to no objections, and she permitted him to put her into the saddle, and then they started on their way.

Geoffrey questioned her about her life during the past eighteen years, and he marveled, as he listened to her story, at the woman’s unwavering devotion and love for the man whose hand so nearly deprived her of life.

She told him, as Mr. Bruce had already done, that, as soon as she was able, she had sold off all her household goods and the farm-stock, and realized over a thousand dollars. She deposited all but enough for her immediate needs in a bank of San Francisco, where she already had some money laid by, and instructed a lawyer there to use it as a reward for the discovery of her husband.

She then began her own tiresome pilgrimage to search for him herself. She roved from one large city to another, stopping some time in each, now taking in washing and ironing to support herself and earn money to continue her search in the next place where she should go; going out as a servant in other places, or selling flowers or confectionery upon the corners of the streets for the same purpose, while she eagerly scanned every face she saw in the hope of somewhere and sometime coming across either Jack or the boy; she had never believed, as others did, that the latter was dead. She felt sure that Jack must have discovered some sign of life about him, and taken him away with the hope of having him restored.

In this way she had visited every large city in the United States. She had been in different mining districts also, thinking that perhaps her husband might have gone back to his old business, hoping thus to hide himself more securely. She had even been in Canada and other British provinces, but had never met with the least encouragement in her search, until that day when she had seen Everet Mapleson in New York and believed him to be Geoffrey. Her disappointment and grief, at his persistent denial of all knowledge of her, had actually prostrated her for the first time during all her tireless search, and she had not been able to leave her bed for several weeks, which accounts for young Mapleson’s inability to find her.

At length, during the last few months, she had relinquished all hope; but an insatiable longing seized her to visit her old home once more, and the kind family who had befriended her in the hour of her sore need. After that, she meant to draw her money from the bank in San Francisco, and with it purchase a right in some home for the aged, where she could peacefully spend the remainder of her life.

The woman was not old, being only about forty-five years of age, but her sorrow and the laborious existence she had led had aged her far more than even another decade could have done.