She accepted the inevitable with amazing outward calm, and instantly decided on her course of action.
Thomas Alvin, since that night when he had struck the girl, had been very much ashamed of himself. Also, during his drunken bout, he had firmly believed he had seen his brother’s ghost, the father of the injured girl, which had left a great fear upon him. Consequently, he had tried in his rough way to be kind to his niece.
Eweretta had a sweet and gentle nature despite her pride, and readily forgave an injury, so she had not held herself aloof from her uncle. This made the carrying-out of the plan she now conceived the easier. She had been waiting near the entrance to the enclosed wood one morning for her uncle to come out.
He was still at work constructing something in the wood. No one knew what the thing was, and he locked the gate which led from the garden carefully after him always.
About one o’clock Thomas Alvin came out, and seeing his niece waiting, looked disconcerted.
“I want to talk with you for a few minutes, uncle,” Eweretta said in a low voice, which lacked all emotion.
Alvin had become accustomed to Eweretta’s normal condition by now. He concluded that she no longer struggled in an unequal contest, and had succumbed to the inevitable. He was utterly unprepared, however, for what followed.
He stood still, waiting for her to speak.
“Let me say all I have to say without interruption,” Eweretta began. “To begin with, I accept the position in which you have placed me; I shall trouble you no more to let me take my rightful place in the world. All that would have made it of value to me is gone. Philip Barrimore has consoled himself. For the future I am Aimée Le Breton. But I ask you to let me be free as other girls to come and go. I ask you to do away with the stigma that rests on me as poor Aimée’s substitute. I do not wish to be treated as one mentally deranged. Give it out that I have recovered if you will, but give me at least a chance to make my life bearable. In return, I promise not to betray you.”
Alvin was astounded.