“We are alike,” she answered, becoming ashen pale.
“Yes, but so different—yet more than once I have seen Eweretta looking out of your eyes.”
She turned her face away into shadow.
“But why should that move you, since you have forgotten her—or, at least, ceased to grieve for her?” she asked.
“Miss Le Breton, I tried to forget her. Can you blame me? I could not have lived if I had let myself so remember. I am a man few like and fewer love. She loved me with all her soul. I lost her. But till I saw you I can say my heart remained in her grave. Oh, I must speak. I must say what is in my heart, even if it is to call upon me bitter disappointment. I am unfaithful at last to her dear memory, for I love you!”
He came close to her and took her hand. Her face was turned from him.
“I love you, Aimée, as I never loved Eweretta, though God knows I loved her well! Until to-day I thought I should never tell you this. Ah! I said I was unfaithful, but I think that was not true. You are Eweretta and yourself in one to me. It is as if my old love had risen from her grave, away in Qu’Appelle, and come to me, nobler, greater and more beautiful! If you can love me, then you can make of me something worthy. I have done many things just for your sake—tried to be better and conquer my faults. I have done this, though I thought you would never be anything to me. I have tried to act as you would approve, if you knew. And till to-day, I thought you belonged to another. Aimée! will you be my good angel? Will you be Eweretta to me?”
She turned shining eyes upon him, eyes brimming with tenderness as she said: “Yes, I will be Eweretta to you.”
He caught her to him in a passionate embrace.
Neither of them heard Alvin enter. They thought only of themselves and the heaven into which they had entered, till a heavy sob broke the silence, and both turned to see Alvin with his face hidden by his hands.