“What a fool you are!” thundered Alvin. “That would excite suspicion. We must just stand our ground. No one can disprove our statements—and the girl looks mad enough to convince anyone.”
“But she has seen him! She is frantic. She will escape to get to him, and we shall be ruined!” cried Mrs. Le Breton. “I wish to God I had never consented to do this thing! I might have known ill luck would follow me, mixing myself up with ‘The Thirteenth Man!’”
“Let me hear no more of that hateful nickname,” he said. “I left that behind me in Canada.”
“But not your ill-luck,” she reminded him.
“Look here, woman!” rejoined Alvin. “It was a pretty lucky thing for you that you let me know that that girl of yours was dying, and I took Eweretta to see her. By making Eweretta take the dead girl’s place you came into comfort. No one doubted that Eweretta lay in the coffin that went to the grave, and no one doubted that the girl we took away with us was Aimée. We kept her well drugged so she couldn’t enlighten them. I came into the fortune which was hers under her father’s will, and you and she share it. She passes as your dead daughter, and always will, if you don’t play the fool. Have you given her a dose?”
“She won’t take it. I have locked her in her room. I wish you would go to her.”
“I wish you wouldn’t shout so, the servants will hear you. I am always afraid you will lead them to suspect something by your tomfoolery.”
Mrs. Le Breton bit her lips with anger. She was still a handsome woman, though her expression spoiled her.
Alvin went on.
“Didn’t you often tell me you would give anything to have revenge on my brother? What better revenge could you have than you’ve got?”