CHAPTER XLVIII.PEACE AT LAST.

“Yes, Annie Dale was my wife!”

Everet bent a sullen look upon Geoffrey.

“Thenheisnota——”

An imperative gesture from his father silenced the obnoxious word that trembled on his lips.

“Geoffrey Huntress, as he has hitherto been known,” he said, “is my son, honorably entitled to my name, and an equal share with yourself of all I possess—a son whom I long mourned as dead, but whom I have most gladly welcomed to my heart and home this night, upon learning who he was.”

“Would you have done so had you not been forced to it?” Everet rudely demanded.

“Everet, you are very disrespectful to-night,” returned his father, with a frown, “I cannot understand why you should manifest such a spirit of hostility. But we will not talk more of this now; you shall have the details of the story of my early life later. I trust, however, that your sense of what is right and just will prompt you to some acknowledgment for your discourtesy toward your brother.”

“My brother!” retorted Everet, aroused afresh at the word; “he has been nothing but a stumbling-block in my path ever since I first saw him; he humiliated me before friends in a way that I have never forgiven; he thwarted me in my hopes at college and in many plans—all but the last one,” he concluded,with a taunting laugh, turning defiantly toward Geoffrey, who was regarding him with more of sorrow than of anger.

“What do you mean, my son?” demanded his father, who saw that something was very wrong between them, and was almost in despair over his inexplicable conduct.

“Has he not told you how I cheated him out of his wife?” Everet asked, supposing, of course, that that wretched story had been rehearsed.

“Cheated him out of his wife!” repeated Colonel Mapleson, growing pale, and glancing apprehensively from one to the other.

His son gave vent to a short, nervous laugh, but feeling considerably crest-fallen at having so recklessly betrayed himself, since he saw that nothing had been said about his miserable plot.

Mr. Huntress here interposed, seeing that the truth must come out, and explained in a few brief sentences what had happened.

Colonel Mapleson sank back white and nervous, as he listened, realizing, almost at the outset, the terrible thing which his son had so nearly accomplished.

“Do you know what you have done, Everet Mapleson?” he said, in a solemn, impressive tone, when his visitor concluded, and the young man was startled and awed in spite of his bravado. “You have been upon the brink of a fearful precipice; you have very nearly committed a dreadful crime, for which I could never have forgiven you, for which you would never have forgiven yourself; the girl whom you have sought to make your wife is your sister.”

The young man grew pale, but more at his father’s tone than from any conviction of the truth of his statement. But he rallied after a moment.

“What stuff are you telling me?” he retorted, contemptuously.

“It is no ‘stuff;’ it is sternest truth; Gladys Huntress is anadopted daughter.”

“Ha!” and now Everet Mapleson seemed suddenly galvanized. “Did Annie Dale have another child?” he demanded, with hueless lips.

“No; but she is yourmother’schild, by a former marriage.”

“Great Heaven!”

There was no defiance or recklessness in his manner now. He sank breathless upon a chair, a horrified look upon his face, a shiver shaking him from head to foot, perspiration starting from every pore.

“My mother’s child!Impossible!Who told you?” he questioned, hoarsely.

“Your mother herself! She was unexpectedly brought face to face with Mr. Huntress to-night; she recognized him and fainted. Upon recovering she confessed to a former marriage,and said, in order to conceal the fact, she had been obliged to give away her child—that Mr. Huntress was the man who adopted her.”

Colonel Mapleson then went on to explain more at length something of the occurrences of the evening, but he was interrupted in the midst of his recital by Everet throwing himself prostrate upon the floor, while a heart-rending groan burst from him as he fell.

When they raised him he was unconscious, and a small stream of blood was trickling from his mouth.

He was carried at once to his room, a servant was immediately dispatched for a doctor, while his anxious friends used what remedies there were at hand for his relief.

When the physician arrived he said his patient had evidently been suffering from a severe cold for several days, and that this, with weariness of body and a sudden shock of some kind, had brought on the hemorrhage, while there were also some indications of a brain trouble, and a severe illness would doubtless follow.

Mr. Huntress and Geoffrey proposed going away early the next morning, but Colonel Mapleson, who seemed greatly unnerved by the excitement of the previous evening, begged them to remain for a few days at least, as he could not bear to give up Geoffrey again so soon after being reunited to him.

They had not the heart to leave him in his trouble after that, and consented to remain long enough to learn what the prospect of Everet’s recovery would be.

But he grew steadily worse, and raved in the wildest delirium, recognizing no one, although there was no return of the hemorrhage. At the end of four days Mr. Huntress decided that he must go home, but Geoffrey concluded that it was his duty to remain with his father until the crisis in Everet’s illness should be passed, for Colonel Mapleson seemed to lean upon and to experience much comfort from his presence.

He proved of the greatest assistance in the sick-room, where he attended Everet most faithfully, and endeared himself to the whole household by his gentleness and courteous bearing.

At the end of three weeks the fever turned, and Everet was pronounced out of danger of any further brain trouble, although it would be a long time before he would fully recover from the weakness of his lungs.

Geoffrey withdrew himself immediately from the sick-room as soon as the patient recovered consciousness, realizing that his presence might be annoying to Everet, and retard his convalescence; although he remained at Vue de l’Eau for another week, at the earnest request of both Colonel and Mrs. Mapleson.

Then he felt that he could not stay longer away from Gladys, and he returned to Brooklyn, taking with him the knowledgeof his father’s firm and lasting affection, and Mrs. Mapleson’s respect and friendship, together with the handsome fortune which he had inherited from Robert Dale, and which Colonel Mapleson had transferred to him.

It had been agreed by all parties that Gladys should never be told the secret of her parentage, although Mrs. Mapleson had wept bitterly when she consented to remain all her life unrecognized by the child for whom her heart yearned inexpressibly.

She could but acknowledge, however, that it would be for her daughter’s happiness, and she was willing to sacrifice her own feelings to secure that.

She had been greatly shocked upon learning of Everet’s wretched plot, and the narrow escape he had had from committing a fearful crime, and she had pleaded with Geoffrey, when parting with him, to forgive her son for the injury he had done him, saying she felt sure that he would deeply regret it, when he fully came to himself.

Geoffrey assured her of his full and free pardon, and actually expressed the hope that he and his half-brother might some time come to regard each other, at least with a friendly, if not with brotherly, affection.

His return was a very joyous one.

Gladys had been assured by her father, long before this, that she was free; that no tie bound her to Everet Mapleson; that the events which had occurred upon the night set for the wedding had been simply a farce, the result of fraud of the worst type, which rendered the ceremony illegal.

She was almost like her old, bright self when Geoffrey arrived, although not quite so strong as formerly, for she had suffered a fearful shock, and it was not surprising that its effects should yet be visible.

Only a few days after Geoffrey’s return, Mr. Huntress’ beloved pastor and his wife were invited to dine with the family, and later in the evening, when the servants were all below—everything having been confidentially explained to the reverend gentleman previous to his visit—Geoffrey and Gladys stood up in the drawing-room and were quietly made one, while only those who were acquainted with the private history of the young couple ever knew of this second ceremony, their fashionable friends and the world all believing that the real marriage had occurred at the time of the brilliant wedding before described.

No one was surprised that the European trip was postponed until warmer weather. “A sea voyage in the dead of winter was a thing to be dreaded; besides, Mr. and Mrs. Huntress had finally decided to brace up their courage and go with them, if they would wait until spring.”

They sailed about the middle of May, and had an unusuallysmooth passage. They spent a whole year abroad—a year of delight, and such as few experience in this world, and then returned to Brooklyn, where Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey Dale Mapleson set up their own establishment on Clinton avenue, not a stone’s throw from their former home.

The change in Geoffrey’s name, together with the discovery of his parentage, had been very easily explained, and then, of course, everybody said “they always knew that he and Everet Mapleson must have the same blood in their veins; but it was really a very romantic circumstance—Geoffrey having been injured and carried off by his nurse’s husband in a fit of drunkenness, and never discovering his parentage until now.”

The next fall, after the young couple’s return from Europe, Colonel Mapleson and his wife paid them a visit, and it was noticeable that a great change had come over the strangely-wedded pair.

The stately and soldierly colonel was devotedly attached to his beautiful wife, who had acquired a peculiar gentleness and sweetness, in place of her former imperious manner, which made her tenfold more attractive. It was evident, too, that she was strongly attached to her noble husband.

When she was presented to Gladys, she folded her closely in her arms.

“My dear,” she said, with a thrill of tenderness in her tones that moved the young wife strangely, “I hope we shall be very good friends, for, although Geoffrey is not my own son,I want to regard you both as my children!”

Tears sprang into Gladys’ eyes.

She lifted her face and kissed the lovely one bending above her.

“I am sure I shall love you very, very dearly,” she said.

And she did. A tender friendship was begun during that visit, which grew stronger and more devoted with every year, and when, at length, two little twin girls were born to Gladys, she named one Alice and the other Estelle.

“For our two mothers,” she said to Geoffrey, with a fond smile.

Colonel Mapleson was very proud of his Annie’s boy, but his happiness would never be quite complete, he said, until there could be perfect harmony between his two sons. He hoped that time would bring even that to pass, for Everet had shown great remorse over the deception that he had practiced upon Gladys, and he finally made an humble, though manly, confession to her, and entreated her pardon for the injury he had done her and her husband.

But it was not until Geoffrey was called to the death-bed of his father, three years after his marriage, that they really became friends.

The making of Colonel Mapleson’s will brought it about, forhe consulted his sons about the matter. Geoffrey refused absolutely to be named in it, except simply to receive an affectionate remembrance from his father, and this attitude excited Everet’s wonder.

“Why do you do this?” he asked, coldly, and regarding his brother with suspicion. “You are my father’s elder son, and entitled to half of his fortune.”

“I do not wish it, believe me,” Geoffrey answered. “I have enough as it is. I can never tell you,” he added, earnestly, “how much more to me than fortune, or any other inheritance, is thenamethat I can legally claim from our father. Let that be my share—indeed, Iwill nothave anything else.”

Everet stood, thoughtful and silent, for several moments. Then, with an evident effort, he looked up in Geoffrey’s face, and said:

“I know that you might haveall, had you chosen to take it, and in that caseIwould have been a beggar. You have led me to believe—and not by this act alone, either—that there is at least one truly noble, unselfish man in the world. If you do not utterly despise me, will you henceforth recognize me as a friend?”

He extended his hand as he spoke, but it shook visibly, and he was very pale. It had not been an easy thing for this proud young Southerner to make such a confession and appeal.

Geoffrey grasped it warmly, his manly face all aglow with sincere joy.

“Not only my ‘friend,’ Everet, but, mybrother, in name and in truth,” he answered, heartily; and thus a life-long bond was established between them, which strengthened with every succeeding year, while the desire of Colonel Mapleson’s heart was granted him ere he closed his eyes upon all things earthly.

A little later, Addie Loring, who during all this time had refused many an eager suitor, became the mistress of Vue de l’Eau, where she reigned the center of a happy and peaceful household.

She often visited her girlhood’s friend at the North, and entertained her, in turn, in her Southern home, where the elder Mrs. Mapleson was supremely content in the presence of her child and grandchildren, even though they were ignorant that no other bond save that of mutual love and sympathy united them.

Mr. and Mrs. Huntress were also very happy in their children, and lived many years to enjoy them—years which brought with them an

“Old age serene and bright,And lovely as a Lapland night.”

“Old age serene and bright,

And lovely as a Lapland night.”

Mr. Huntress retired from active business soon after his returnfrom Europe, resigning his place in the firm to Geoffrey, who developed great ability as a business man, and was as energetic and industrious as if he had his fortune still to make, instead of already being the possessor of a handsome competence.

Gladys, true to her vow upon that wedding-day, which had ended so sadly, and yet which, they all felt, had been wisely overruled, divided her time between the duties in her own home and the work of lightening the burdens of others, “reflecting some of the happiness of her own life upon those less favored;” thus laying up treasures for herself more precious and lasting than either silver or gold.

“Who soweth good seed shall surely reap;The year groweth rich as it groweth old,And life’s latest sands are its sands of gold.”

“Who soweth good seed shall surely reap;

The year groweth rich as it groweth old,

And life’s latest sands are its sands of gold.”

[THE END.]

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTESAdded table ofCONTENTS.Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

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