After Philip Barrimore and Dan Webster had quitted the garden at the White House, Mrs. Le Breton slipped her arm through Eweretta’s and led her to a sequestered spot, where a wooden seat was hidden by thick, tall bushes.
“My darling!” she whispered. “How hard for you! how cruelly hard!” Tears were in the elder woman’s eyes.
Eweretta turned her beautiful face towards her companion. Her dark blue eyes had no tears in them.
“Mother,” she said (she always called Mrs. Le Breton “mother” now), “you must not pity me. I am fortunate. I saw to-day how completely I had gone out of Philip Barrimore’s life. If we had married, and this had happened, then, indeed, you might have pitied me! No, we are each destined to some good life-work. I have found mine. I can be a comfort to you and to Uncle Thomas. I have thought much of you both lately. Your life has been a tragedy, dear mother, and that of Uncle Thomas scarcely less so. He has lived under an imagined curse, which became real, because he and everyone else believed in it. I myself have escaped a real tragedy, the tragedy of finding out that I had married a man whose love is not lasting. I do not blame Philip. No one ought to be blamed for ceasing to love. Love’s coming and going is independent of our will.”
“But, dearest,” said Mrs. Le Breton, “do you still love Philip?”
“The Philip I loved is dead,” she answered a little mournfully. “This Philip I can meet without pain from to-day.”
Mrs. Le Breton thought silently for a few moments, during which time she held one of Eweretta’s soft hands between her own, which were hardened and knotted from the rough work she had done in Canada, mending shoes.
At last she said: “You ought to have friends of your own age, dear. It is not right that you should be shut up with two middle-aged people. We ought to move away somewhere where nothing is known about us, to give you a chance.”
Eweretta’s brows were suddenly drawn together, as if she were in pain. “No—never think of it,” she pleaded. “I love the White House and its solitude. I could not make friends with girls of my own age. I have grown so old. But I am happy. Never think I am not happy!”
While the two women talked together, Thomas Alvin was within the house, writing a letter. Every now and then he smiled. What a reparation it would be for the wrong he had done his niece, if by his help the lovers became reunited.