"I was a poor lad, Dr. Spenlove, without parents, without a home; and when I was fourteen years of age I was working as an errand-boy in London, and keeping myself upon a wage of four shillings a week. I lost this situation through the bankruptcy of my employer, and I was not successful in obtaining another. One day, I saw on the walls a bill of a vessel going to Australia, and I applied at the agent's office with a vague idea that I might obtain a passage by working aboard ship in some capacity or other. I was a strong boy--starvation agrees with some lads--and a willing boy, and it happened that one of my stamp was wanted in the cook's galley. I was engaged at a shilling a month, and I landed in Melbourne with four shillings in my pocket.
"How I lived till I became a man is neither here nor there; but when gold was discovered I lived well, for I got enough to buy a share in a cattle station, which now belongs entirely to me. In 1860, being then on the high road to fortune, I made the acquaintance of a man whom I will call Mr. Charles, and of his only child, a girl of fourteen, whom I will call Mary. I was taken with Mr. Charles, and I was taken in by him as well, for he disappeared from the colony a couple of years afterwards, in my debt to the tune of a thousand pounds. He had the grace to write to me from London, saying he would pay me some day; and there the matter rested for seven years more, which brings me to two years ago.
"At that time I had occasion to visit England on business; and in London I hunted up my debtor, and we renewed our acquaintance. Mary was then a young woman of twenty-one; and had it not been for her, it is more than likely I might have made things unpleasant for her father, who was leading the disreputable life of a gambler on racecourses, and in clubs of a low character.
"Dr. Spenlove, you must have gathered from the insight I have given you into my character that I am not a man of sentiment, and you will probably consider it all the more strange that I should have entertained feelings towards Mary which caused me to consider whether she would not make me a creditable wife. Of these feelings I prefer not to speak in a warmer strain, but shall leave you to place your own construction upon them. While I was debating with myself as to the course I should pursue, the matter was decided for me by the death of Mr. Charles. He died in disgrace and poverty, and Mary was left friendless and homeless.
"I stepped in to her rescue, and I made a proposal of marriage to her. At the same time, I told her that I thought it advisable, for her sake and mine, that a little time should elapse before this proposal was carried into effect. I suggested that our marriage should take place in two years; meanwhile, I would return to Australia, to build a suitable house and to prepare a home for her, and she would remain in England to fit herself for her new sphere of duties. She accepted me, and I arranged with a lady of refinement to receive her. To this lady both she and I were utter strangers, and it was settled between Mary and myself that she should enter her temporary home under an assumed name. It was my proposal that this pardonable deceit should be practised; no person was wronged by it, and it would assist towards Mary's complete severance from old associations. Our future was in our own hands, and concerned nobody but ourselves.
"I returned to Australia, and made my preparations. We corresponded once a month, and some few months ago I informed her of the date of my intended arrival in England. To that letter I received no reply; and when I landed and called at the lady's house, I learned that she had fled. I set to work to discover the truth, and I have discovered it; I set to work to track her, and I have succeeded. Her story is a common story of betrayal and desertion, and I am not inclined to trouble you with it. She has not the remotest hope of assistance from the man who betrayed her; she has not the remotest hope of assistance from a person in the world with the exception of myself.
"Dr. Spenlove, notwithstanding what has occurred I am here in Portsmouth this night with the intention of carrying out the engagement into which I entered with her; I am here, prepared to marry her, on express conditions. The adoption of assumed names, the obscurity she has courted, the absolute silence which is certain to be observed by her, by me, by you, by the man who betrayed her, render me safe. It is known that I have come to England to be married, and she will be accepted as I present her when I return with her as my wife. I will have no discussion as to my motives for taking what the world would consider an unwise step; but you will understand that my feelings for the woman who has played me false must be of a deep and sincere nature, or I should not dream of taking it.
"It now only remains for me to state the conditions under which I am prepared to save her from even a more shameful degradation than that into which she has already fallen. I speak plainly. You know as well as I the fate that is in store for her if my offer is rejected."