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. She could tell Geoffrey nothing more regarding the identity of his father than he already knew. She had never seen him since his last visit to her home, more than a year previous to the tragedy, and she had never known any other address than the one of which Mr. Bruce had spoken. He had told her to send a letter to “Lock Box 43, Santa Fe,” if anything should ever happen to his boy, and she wished to summon him. But she had gone away without communicating with him; she had been eager to get away before he could come again, for she had not courage to meet him and tell him the dreadful story about his child, which she alone knew. “Margery,” Geoffrey said, gravely, after she had concluded her account, “have you never thought that there was something very strange in the fact that my father should have been so reserved about himself, and kept his only child so remote and concealed from all his friends?” “Yes, Master Geoffrey, it did strike me as queer, at times; but I reasoned that perhaps he hadn’t any very near friends, for he talked of putting you to some school as soon as you were old enough to go away from me.” “Do you think that everything was all right between him and my mother?” “How right, sir?” the woman asked, with surprise.