"Why?" asked Myrtle, somewhat frightened to find herself so bold.

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."