"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,