"There is another part of my story that you must know to understand me fully; to know why I am now a hopeless, desperate man; or was until—until last night, perhaps. Some years ago, when in Boston, I fell in love with a beautiful girl. I am nearly fifty, and she was not quite thirty, but it never occurred to me that I was too old to win her love, and she frankly confessed she cared for me. But she said she could not marry a poor man and would therefore wait for me to make a fortune. Then I might be sure she would marry me. I believed her. I do not know why men believe women. It is an absurd thing to do. I did it; but other men have been guilty of a like folly. Ah, how I worked and planned! One cannot always make a fortune in a short time. It took me years, and all the time she renewed her promises and kept my hopes and my ambitions alive.
"At last I won the game, as I knew I should do in time. It was a big strike. I discovered the 'Blue Bonnet' mine, and sold a half interest in it for a million. Then I hurried to Boston to claim my bride…. She had been married just three months, after waiting, or pretending to wait, for me for nearly ten years! She married a poor lawyer, too, after persistently refusing me because I was poor. She laughed at my despair and coldly advised me to find some one else to share my fortune."
He paused again and wearily passed his hand over his eyes—a familiar gesture, as Myrtle knew. His voice had grown more and more dismal as he proceeded, and just now he seemed as desolate and unhappy as when first they saw him at the Grand Canyon.
"I lived through it somehow," he continued; "but the blow stunned me. It stuns me yet. Like a wounded beast I slunk away to find my sister, knowing she would try to comfort me. She was dead. Her daughter Myrtle, whom I had never seen, had been killed in an automobile accident. That is what her aunt, a terrible woman named Martha Dean, told me, although now I know it was a lie, told to cover her own baseness in sending an unprotected child to the far West to seek an unknown uncle. I paid Martha Dean back the money she claimed she had spent for Myrtle's funeral; that was mere robbery, I suppose, but not to be compared with the crime of her false report. I found myself bereft of sweetheart, sister—even an unknown niece. Despair claimed me. I took the first train for the West, dazed and utterly despondent. Some impulse led me to stop off at the Grand Canyon, and there I saw the means of ending all my misery. But Myrtle interfered."
Uncle John, now thoroughly interested and sympathetic, leaned over and said solemnly:
"The hand of God was in that!"
Mr. Jones nodded.
"I am beginning to believe it," he replied. "The girl's face won me even in that despairing mood. She has Kitty's eyes."
"They are beautiful eyes," said Uncle John, earnestly. "Sir, you have found in your niece one of the sweetest and most lovely girls that ever lived. I congratulate you!"
Mr. Jones nodded again. His mood had changed again since they began to speak of Myrtle. His eyes now glowed with pleasure and pride. He clasped Mr. Merrick's hand in his own as he said with feeling: