“I think he will be very glad to, dear—at least for the present,” Geoffrey said, confidently, “until he finds out just what steps we intend to take. It would be very mortifying to him to have his villainy discovered, and become a target for everybody to shoot at, because he failed to get possession of the bride he had strained every nerve to win, while we shall do our utmost as soon as I return.”
“Return! Where are you going?”
“Ah! has not Aunt Alice told you? I am going South immediately, to try to get at the truth regarding my birth.”
He then told her something of the revelations of last night, and she was greatly astonished and shocked to learn of his relation to the man who had so injured them both.
“Brothers, Geoff? Just to think of it!” she cried, wonderingly.
He smiled somewhat bitterly.
“I fear if what he says is true, that the house of Mapleson will not own me either as a son or a brother. However, I wish to know the truth, whatever it is, and then just as soon as I return we will try to have that wretched fraud of last night rectified.”
“Can it be done without publicity, Geoffrey?” Gladys asked, anxiously.
“Yes, I believe it can be arranged so that very few will ever be any wiser for what has happened.”
This was one of the things that Mr. Huntress and Geoffrey had talked of the night before, and the events of the next few days confirmed them in the belief that all scandal might be avoided.