MRS. MELRAY'S STATEMENT.
"My mother died when I was little more than a child, and a year later I lost my father. After the latter event I went to live at Solchester with my uncle, Mr. Samuel Champneys, who was also my guardian. When I first met Evan Wildash I was sixteen years old and had just left school. He was my senior by four years and had come to Solchester to fill a vacancy in a land surveyor's office, his home, meanwhile, being with a maiden aunt whose house was only a few doors away from that of my uncle. Evan was an especially handsome young man, with large, black, lustrous eyes, a dark Italian-looking face, and a most persuasive voice; in short, just the kind of provincial Romeo to take captive the heart of a romantic school-girl. Small wonder, therefore, was it that, when he one day whispered in my ear that he loved me, he took mine captive on the spot. After that we used to met in secret two or three times a week, and, as if that were not enough, we got into the way of writing silly little love notes to each other between times, our post-office being a hollow in an old apple-tree at the bottom of my uncle's orchard.
"This went on for half a year or more, wholly without my uncle's knowledge, and never was girl more happy than I. Not for a moment did I doubt Evan's assurances that in all the world he loved but me; and, in return, he had all the girlish love I had to bestow. By-and-by rumours began to reach me of the wild and reckless kind of life he was leading--of his racing and betting propensities, of his card-playing, billiard-playing, and I know not what besides; but he was my Bayard in so far that, in my eyes, he was sans reproche, and I would not listen to aught that was said in his disparagement. At length, however, the crash came. He was dismissed from his situation, and, worse than all, dismissed without a character. Even then I would hear no ill spoken of him.
"It was just about this time that someone, I never discovered who, opened my uncle's eyes (good simple man!) to the state of affairs between Evan and myself. Under these circumstances five uncles out of six would have sent for their niece and have upbraided her and made things generally unpleasant for her; but he went to work after a different fashion. Instead of scolding me, he sent for my lover.
"According to Evan, as told to me later, Uncle Samuel spoke to him something to the following effect: 'You have lost your situation and you have lost your character--such a one as you had to lose. Solchester and you must now part company. I am given to understand that you profess to be in love with my niece. If you are seeking her for the sake of her small fortune--and it is only a very small one--I must impress two facts upon you. The first is, that she will not be of age for three and a half years; the second, that her money is so tied up that her husband, whoever he may be, will not be able to touch a penny of it. Now, although I am my niece's guardian, and although she is legally bound to do my bidding while under age, I have no wish to quarrel with her on your account. Rather than do that I am prepared to make you an offer, which, for your own sake, I strongly advise you to accept. What I have to propose is this: That, on condition of your breaking off all future relations with my niece, and of your at once going out to one of the Colonies--I care not which--I will present you with the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds, the odd fifty to be given you at once for your passage and outfit, and the two hundred to be paid you the day after you land at Melbourne, or Halifax, or at whatever port you may decide upon consigning your worthless self to.' Evan took a day to consider. On the morrow he told my uncle that he would accept the proffered sum and go.
"'So that is the price at which you and my uncle appraise me!' I whimpered, when, with his arm round my waist and my head resting against his shoulder, he told me what he had agreed upon doing. 'Two hundred and fifty pounds! Oh, if I had but known before!'
"'Believe me, dearest, it is for the best,' he replied as he softly fondled my cheek. Then he went on to say that his plan was to go out to the South African diamond fields, where, according to his account, fortunes, just then, were being picked up 'every day of the week.' Why should he be less lucky than others? What was there to hinder him, from picking up a fortune? He had not the slightest doubt that at the end of two, or, at the most, three years, he should be back in England, worth who could say how many thousands of pounds. When that desirable state of affairs should have come to pass, he would marry me despite the opposition of all the uncles in the universe. Meanwhile, would I be true to him? Of course I would be true to him, I told him as I wept quietly on his shoulder.
"Well, he went. One letter he wrote me after landing at Cape Town, which reached me through the good offices of his aunt, Miss Pinchin, who was privy to our engagement and willing to further it to the best of her ability. After that there was a long, long silence, and finally, about a couple of years after his departure from England came the news of his death from fever.
"I cried, but not a great deal, when the news was told me. The fact was that by the time Evan had been gone three or four months I began to find, much to my surprise and hardly less to my mortification, that his image was slowly, but surely, fading and losing its vividness of outline in my memory--that I no longer thought of him by day and dreamt of him by night, as I had been wont to do, and that his unaccountable silence troubled me less and less as time went on. Love, or that which I had dignified with the name of love, had taken no real root in my heart. A few natural tears I shed when the news was told me; and a sense of what might have been, but never could be now, came over me and smote me as with a lash. But I quickly dried my eyes. Three days before I had promised to become the wife of James Melray.
"My uncle had died some time before, after having appointed Mr. Melray my guardian for the remaining term of my minority. He placed me under the care of a certain Mrs. Simpson, and there, from time to time, he used to come and see me. Before a year was out he one day took my breath away by making me an offer of marriage. I asked for a couple of days to consider my answer, at the end of which time I accepted his offer. Before doing so, however, I gave him clearly to understand that I entertained no warmer feeling for him than one of simple liking and esteem. He was quite content, he told me, to take me on those terms. Affection, he did not doubt, would follow in due course. There seemed to me no need for mentioning the name of Evan Wildash. The episode in connection with him was a thing of the past. He was dead, and therewith the promise I had given him had no longer any binding force.