He had come there with his heart full of bitterness toward the man who, he believed, had done his mother an irreparable wrong.
But now he found those feelings fast changing to pity and sympathy for him. His manly confession had more than half conquered him at the outset, while his tender memories of the acknowledged wife of his youth, and the fond inflection with which his voice was filled every time he uttered his own name, told him that some of his dearest hopes had clustered around those early days when he had been a wee infant, and stirred a tenderness within his own heart for his father which he had never imagined he could feel.
He untied the faded blue ribbon that bound the box which Colonel Mapleson had given him, with fingers that trembled visibly, removed the lid and found a thin, folded paper within.
He opened it. It was an old telegram addressed to William Mapleson, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and contained these words:
“I will come, Will. Start at ten on the eighth.”
There was another paper underneath this, and his heart beat rapidly as he drew it forth.
A blur came before his eyes, a nervous trembling seized him, making the paper rattle in his grasp, for something seemed to tell him, even before he looked at it, what it was.
Yes, it was even as he had surmised, for there, in black and white, as plain and strong as the law could make it, was the certificate which proved the legality of the bond that united William Mapleson and Annie Dale, and dated only a few days later than the telegram which he had just seen.
They had been married in Kansas City immediately upon the arrival of Miss Dale, by the Rev. Dr. A. K. Bailey, of the Episcopal church.
A song of thanksgiving arose in Geoffrey’s heart as he read this, for it proved that his mother had been an honored wife—that no stain had ever rested on his birth; he was the legitimate son of William and Annie Mapleson, and the burden of fear and dread, that had so long oppressed him, was rolled away from his heart at last.