One morning, about a week after Dan’s departure, a box of lovely hot-house flowers arrived for her, and she knew well who was the sender.
The dawn she had seen in the East was growing rosy red.
Alvin and Mrs. Le Breton discussed this box of flowers in secret.
The woman was glad, but Alvin, who had still hopes of reuniting the old lovers—though those hopes had been considerably shaken—was not so pleased. He liked Dan—who did not?—but he wanted to be sure, very sure indeed, that Eweretta’s love for Philip was really dead before he encouraged another suitor.
Alvin was very desirous of seeing Eweretta happily married. He did not believe that Mrs. Le Breton would be a long liver. He himself might “snuff out” at any moment. True, he was hale and hearty, as prairie products are wont to be; but the superstition which had formed so much and marred so much of his life clung to him. “The Thirteenth Man,” to whom ill-luck had ever clung, would never make old bones. Alvin was convinced that his end would be sudden and tragic. He wanted to make sure of Eweretta’s future.
One thing he had already done since his promise to the girl that her identity should not be revealed. He had made a will leaving everything to Aimée Le Breton (which was only giving back to Eweretta what was her own).
Thomas Alvin, in spite of his being for the first time in his life in a good monetary position, was far from happy. Exteriorly he appeared cheerful, but there were times of deep depression, when he always retired to the enclosed wood. He never drank now. In fact, he had only for a little time given way to drink, and that had been at the White House. Drink is not a Canadian vice.
His one idea, when he had treacherously possessed himself of Eweretta’s fortune, had been to get to England and live as a “gentleman.” Now that he was established in a good house, well-furnished, he pined for the free life of the prairie. Often as he lay in his comfortable bed, he would think with longing of the “shake-down” in a “shack” where he had rolled himself in a rug with a saddle for a pillow.
There were times when a wild longing to return to the old life possessed him. Then he would retire to the enclosed wood to fight his battle in solitude.
What lay within the high wall he had built round the clearing no one knew, and no one of his household asked.