Being happy, however, is not quite possible alone. No, and Jean Baptiste was not alone. And here is what had happened.
Jack Stewart had told him the story. And in the story told, one great mystery was solved. He now understood why Agnes' eyes had been so baffling. Simple, too, in a measure. To begin with, her mother had possessed rare brown eyes, he had seen by her picture, because Agnes' mother had not been a white woman at all, but in truth was of Ethiopian extraction. This was a part of the story Jack Stewart had told him. He had met and married her mother on a trip from the West Indies where she had lived, to Glasgow; the marriage being decided upon quickly, for in truth the woman was fleeing. In London some years before, she had been the pupil of a learned minister, who had become an infidel, and also unscrupulous. But we know the story—at least a part of it—of Augustus M. Barr, alias, Isaac M. Barr; alias—but it does not matter. We are concerned with Agnes' mother. Her mother had inherited a small fortune from Agnes' grandma and this Barr had sought to secure. To do so, he had followed Jack Stewart and his wife, Agnes' mother to Jerusalem. There he had met Isaac Syfe, the Jew, whom he later brought to America. He did not find the woman he had followed there, but on his return to England he did find Peter Kaden who was married to Christine. Kaden was involved in a murder case, was accused, and had been sentenced to Australia for the rest of his natural life. It was Barr who saved him, and the fee Kaden paid was Christine. Barr accommodated him by bringing him to America where he placed all three, including himself, on homesteads. Syfe settled with him in cash by taking a large loan on his homestead and giving Barr the proceeds.
But Kaden was in the way. He had never been comfortable in the new country with Christine the wife of another and living so near, so Barr sent Christine away and drove Kaden to suicide. Later at Lincoln, Nebraska she left him and went out of his life forever. Barr had secured Kaden's homestead, and all this Jack Stewart knew, but had never disclosed. Barr lost track of Agnes' mother, but knew that somewhere in the world there was a treasure but not as great as he had thought it was—about ten thousand dollars in all.
While Jean Baptiste was absorbed in these thoughts, the door was opened quietly, and closed. Some one had entered the stateroom and his ears caught the light rustle of a skirt. His eyes were upon the landscape, but suddenly they saw nothing, for his eyes had been covered by a pair of soft hands.
"I knew it was you," he said, happily, as he drew her into the seat beside him, between himself and the window.
"What are you thinking of, my Jean," she said then.
"Of what I have been thinking ever since the day when we understood that you and I after all are of the same blood."
"Oh, you have," she chimed, and drawing his face close with her hands, she kissed him ardently.
"Isn't it beautiful, Agnes? Just grand!"
"Oh, Jean, you make me so happy."