“Just your first name,” he coaxed with so winning an air that she felt strangely drawn toward him, and answered softly:
“It is Eva.”
“Eva Groves!” he laughed gayly, adding, at her startled look: “You see, I can put two and two together. You told the conductor your grandfather’s name was Groves, so I guess yours must be the same.”
“Now tell me yours,” she answered non-committally.
“It isn’t necessary. I’ll call on your grandfather for the money when I come into Harrison County next week,” he answered, unfolding a newspaper and dropping the conversation.
He had no intention of doing so, but his mind was in a tumult.
Eva Somerville and her unknown father had crossed each other’s paths without the slightest recognition.
He knew not that his dead wife had borne him a daughter, but he was familiar with the fact of the only son’s death in Kansas, and the adoption of the orphans by their grandfather. He said to himself:
“This beautiful little Eva is my dead wife’s niece, and so like her that it gave me quite a turn when I looked into her face. Why should I go into Harrison County at all to harrow up my mind with old memories? Why should I trouble that old man that hates me? I am rich enough already. Let the mortgage go for the sake of little Eva’s beautiful eyes!” and he sighed.