“Get to bed,” said Mrs. Le Breton, “I will go now. From this time your life shall be made bearable. My last word to you is, Hope!”
Eweretta looked once more from her window towards the bungalow. The lights were out. Then she undressed briskly in the dark.
She felt herself now that she was not drugged, and could think clearly. Hope had at last come to her, though the outlook was still so dark. Mrs. Le Breton had become her friend, which to the poor girl seemed nothing short of a miracle. Mattie was her friend. Surely help would come now!
But what had Mrs. Le Breton meant by saying that Uncle Thomas would not live long?
Had he some mysterious disease that did not show itself outwardly? or would drink kill him? He only drank heavily occasionally.
Eweretta did not meditate escaping now. It was true that did she do so her uncle might revenge himself on Mrs. Le Breton. This woman had wronged her deeply, but she was repentant. Eweretta could not bring her to a tragic end. Her life since she had known John Alvin had been a tragedy.
Oh, why had her father so sinned? He had been a loving father to her. He had been so different from Uncle Thomas. How could he have so cruelly wronged a woman as he had wronged Mrs. Le Breton? How could he have turned his back on Aimée?
All this Eweretta felt she would never understand.
What she did understand was that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children.
She lay upon her bed, trying to gather up the lost threads of a lost year, a year in which she seemed to have always lived a dream existence, but the dream had been troubled always.