"You may well say it is a sad story," Roderick answered. "To me it seems all the more so that since the receipt of that letter which dashed all my hopes Fortune has smiled upon me. Everything I touch seems to turn to money. The novel, rejected before, has since been accepted, and has run through several editions; articles from my pen are in demand by leading magazines; all my speculations have turned out well, and my insurance business has prospered. It is the old, old story of Fortune coming too late."
I sat still, joyful, yet amazed; thinking within myself:
"How wonderful are the ways of Providence! Niall's dream of restoring the old place shall certainly be realized now. Father and child, reunited, shall dwell amongst those lovely scenes; while the faithful hearts of Niall and Granny Meehan shall be filled with joy. How seldom does life work out events so happily!"
"Would you like to see the old place again?" I asked.
"What use now?" he cried. "Some day I may take the journey to see if Niall be still amongst the living; but I shrink from that as yet."
We sat silent after that for some moments, I afraid to break the spell lest I should in any way betray the knowledge which so filled my heart. But presently Roderick roused himself with the remark:
"That child whom I first saw in the carriage on Broadway, and whom I next saw in your company, has awakened a strange train of thought in my mind. I have even dared to hope that I have been the victim of a trick and that my child still lives. Her voice, when she spoke in the Waldorf parlor the other day, seemed as an echo of my vanished youth. It was the voice of my wife; and when the child rose from the chair and confronted me, for an instant I believed that the grave had given up its dead. It was my wife herself as I saw her first, many years before our marriage."
"Resemblances are very delusive," I said lamely.
"But was this resemblance delusive?" he asked, leaning forward and looking me in the face.
"How can I answer? I never saw your wife," I replied.