He did not answer for a long time, but sat reading her mobile face until a gentler look came into his hard blue eyes.
"It is a story too sad for young ears," he finally replied. "Perhaps, too, you would not understand it, not knowing or understanding me. I'm an odd sort of man, well along in years, and I've lived an odd sort of life. But my story, such as it is, has ended, and I'm too weary to begin another volume."
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Myrtle, earnestly. "Surely this cannot be the fulfillment and end of your life. If it were, why should I come into your life just now?"
He stared at her with a surprised—an even startled—look.
"Have you come into my life?" he inquired, in a low, curious tone.
"Haven't I?" she returned. "At the Grand Canyon—"
"I know," he interrupted hastily. "That was your mistake; and mine.
You should not have interfered. I should not have let you interfere."
"But I did," said Myrtle.
"Yes. Somehow your voice sounded like a command, and I obeyed it; perhaps because no living person has a right to command me. You—you took me by surprise."
He passed his hand over his eyes with that weary gesture peculiar to him, and then fell silent.