“What remained, but as was suggested to the victim of an earlier inrush of disasters? To curse God, and die? The teaching of my youth, combined with a substratum of philosophic disdain of the ills of life, forbade the ignominious surrender. I took counsel with my calmer self, with my best friends, made no sign, arranged for regular remittances, and took my passage for South America.
“How I lived among the wild people and wilder adventurers, whom debt and dishonour, or Bohemian love of freedom had driven from the headquarters of art, civilisation and luxury, may be told some day; sufficient to say that during the five years I lived abroad much of my unhappiness and despair of life wore off by the slow but sure attrition of new occupations amongst strange companions. From time to time I sent home articles to scientific societies which gave me a certain vogue in literary circles. At length, and not until the end of the sixth year of wandering had been reached, a desire arose to see England and my people once more. Six months after my departure, Adeline had married an elderly peer, when, as Lady Wandsborough, she gained the position and consideration which I had been unable to offer her. Two years afterwards another excitement was caused among the smart set by her elopement with Colonel Delamere, ‘a distinguished military man,’ said the Court Circular, concerning whom there had been a growing scandal. Socially condemned, dropped and disowned, what was to be the end of the brilliant woman, whose entertainments, dresses, jewels, and friendships, made up so large a part of English and Continental chit-chat?
“Lord Wandsborough without loss of time obtained a divorce. There was no appearance of the co-respondent. Since then, there had been no authentic information about the arrant pair—neither, though I searched the fashion journals with unusual industry, did I come across the marriage of Colonel Delamere to the heroine of so many historiettes in high life. It was not that I had any strong personal interest in her career, fallen as she was now from her high estate finally and irrevocably.
“But I couldn’t attain to complete detachment from all human sympathy for the fallen idol of my youthful dreams, though perhaps my strongest sentiment connected with her was one of heartfelt gratitude for the brusque manner in which she had discarded me, and so saved me from the keenest—the most exquisitely cruel tortures to which the civilised man can be subjected.
“Of all people in the world she was the last whom I expected, or indeed desired, to see again; yet we were doomed to meet once more. I told you that I came from Hobart, the day after my arrest (save the mark!), in a vessel from Callao, of which the crew and passengers were strangely mixed, various in character as in colour and nationality; South Americans, Mexicans, Americans of the States, both Northerners and Southerners. Among them I noted, although I was far from troubling myself about their histories, a tall, handsome man, who bore on him the impress of British military service. It was Colonel Delamere! I could not be mistaken. I had formed a slight acquaintance with him in earlier days; had watched him at cards, with some of the least villanous-looking of the foreigners, to whose excitable manner and reckless language his own offered so marked a contrast. I did not intend to make myself known to him, but accident was stronger than inclination. Seeing a lady struggling up the companion (the weather was still rough), I moved forward and helped her to a seat. She turned to thank me, and after an earnest surprised glance at my face—‘But, no! it can’t be! Am I so changed?’ she said reproachfully, ‘that you don’t know Adeline Montresor?’ She was changed, oh! how sadly, and I had not known her. The second time, of course, I recognised the object of my youthful adoration, the woman by whose heartless conduct I had been so rudely disillusioned. She glanced at the Colonel, who, engrossed in the game, had not observed her coming on deck, and motioned me to take a seat beside her, saying, ‘How you have changed since we last met! I treated you shamefully—heartlessly, I confess, but it was all for your good, as people say to children. You would never have been the man you are if Fate and I had not sent you out into the world with a broken heart. Now tell me all about yourself?’ she continued, with a glance which recalled the spell of former witchery, harmless however, now, as summer lightning. ‘You don’t wish to cut me, I hope?’
“‘Far from it,’ I replied, ‘you will always find me a friend. Is there any way in which I can serve you? you have only to say. What is your address?’ She looked over at the Colonel and his companions with a melancholy air, and replied in a low voice, ‘We are travelling as “Captain and Mrs. Winchester.” Poor fellow, he cannot marry me, though he would do so to-morrow, if he were free from his wife, as I am from my husband. But she will not go for a divorce, just to punish us; isn’t it spiteful? You can see—’ here she touched her dress which was strictly economical—‘that it is low water with us. I have tried the stage, and we have been doing light comedy in Callao, and the coast towns. You have seen me in the amateur business?’
“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘how I admired you!’
“‘I know that,’ and she smiled with a strangely mingled suggestion of amusement and sadness; ‘you were a first-class lover in the proposal scene, though a little too much in earnest. I really was touched, and if—if indeed—everything had been different, my heart, my previous experiences, my insane love of society triumphs, dress, diamonds, etc. These I thought I had secured, and so accepted your honest adoration. But even then I was in love with poor Jack—never loved any one else in fact. I have been his ruin, and he mine. I see he has finished his game, and is coming over. You may as well know each other.’ The Colonel looked at me fixedly, much wondering at our apparent friendly attitude, then bowed politely and formally. ‘No, Jack, you don’t know him, though you’ve seen him before. He’s an old friend of mine, though, to whom I did a good turn, the best any one ever did him, when I broke our engagement short off, after hearing he’d lost his money. Now you know.’
“‘You’re a queer woman,’ said he, putting out his hand in frank and manly fashion, which I shook warmly. ‘I always said you treated him brutally. It didn’t break his heart, though it might have suffered at the time. We’re all fools; I nearly shot myself when I was just of age over Clara Westbrook.’
“‘Yes, I know,’ assented ‘Mrs. Winchester,’ good-humouredly; ‘now she’s eighteen stone and can hardly get into her carriage.’