A wistful look came into Alvin’s eyes, as if he were gazing on a far, far horizon.
“Ah, I am homesick! homesick!” he said in deep, lingering tones. “Homesick, for the old rough, wild life. How homesick you can neither of you know, even Eweretta, for she never roughed it. I must leave you now—leave you to realize your happiness. Before you go, Philip” (it was the first time that he had called the young man by his Christian name), “before you go, come to me in the little wood, and I will show you something. The gate will be open.”
Philip had not spoken one word. A war had been going on within him, a war of conflicting emotions. The affection which had of late been growing within him for Thomas Alvin was battling with anger and indignation at the crime of the man who had so nearly wrecked the happiness of himself and Eweretta.
“Philip,” said Eweretta, reading his thought, “we must be merciful if we are to expect mercy.”
“Dear heart!” he said, drawing her once more into his arms, “you are right. You are always right! But why, tell me why you did not disclose the secret to your old lover?”
Her eyes smiled.
“At first I thought you had ceased to love your Eweretta. I wanted to see if you would love her again in the person of Aimée Le Breton.”
“But how could I have been so blind as not to have known you under any disguise?” he cried.
“Yet it is so simple,” she told him. “You were assured of my death. You even went to Canada to see my grave. You knew I had a sister so marvellously like me as to be easily mistaken for me. You were told I was Aimée Le Breton. Then again, sorrow robbed me of my old gaiety, changed my disposition. Oh, the delusion was easy enough to carry out!”
“It was carried out, in any case,” he told her. “Yet there were moments when I saw the soul of my lost love looking out of your dear eyes. Oh, my darling! a miracle has happened! And can you love a vain, cantankerous brute like me?”