"Mr. Melray and I were married. I did my best to make my husband happy, and, through all the dark days which have followed, the consciousness that I succeeded in doing so has been the greatest consolation left me. He prophesied rightly when he said that, being rooted in esteem, affection would not fail to grow. It did grow, as he knew, and he was happy in the knowledge.
"One afternoon, about a week prior to that fatal September day, having finished my shopping in the town, instead of going direct home, I was tempted by the fineness of the weather to go round by the Ladies' Walk, that fine old avenue of elms which stretches for nearly a mile along the left bank of the river, and is the only park, so to call it, of which Merehampton can boast.
"I had been strolling slowly along for some minutes, immersed in thought, when I was startled by a man who came suddenly out from behind the trunk of one of the big old trees, and stepping in front of me blocked the way. A second look was needed before I knew him again. It was Evan Wildash; but oh, how changed! With his sallow, sunken cheeks, his restless, furtive eyes, his long, unkempt hair, and his shabby, ill-fitting clothes, he looked like a vile copy of his former self. I fell back with a cry as my eyes met his. 'So, traitress, you have not forgotten me!' he exclaimed through his set teeth, as he followed me up with clenched hands and raised shoulders.
"What answer I made I don't recollect, nor does it matter; but apparently it had the effect of soothing him in some measure. 'Let us sit,' he said,' I have much to tell you, many questions to ask.' Accordingly we seated ourselves on one of the public benches. At that hour of the afternoon the walk was nearly deserted; its whole length did not hold more than half-a-dozen people.
"What passed between us may be briefly summarised.
"After that one letter written from the Cape, he had gone 'up country' to the diamond fields. There he was presently smitten by sunstroke, and months passed before he was able to crawl outside the hospital-tent. So reduced was he in strength that manual labour of any kind was out of the question, and in order to keep himself from starving he was glad to accept a berth in a store; and there he had stayed till he had saved enough money to pay his passage home.
"'But when you got better, why did you not write,' I asked. 'I did write, again and yet again,' he replied. 'After that first letter not a line from you ever reached me,' I said. 'What conclusion could I come to save that you had forgotten me?' 'If that is so, then has there been treachery at work,' he replied, with a contraction of his ebon brows. 'That is a thing to be ferreted out, and I charge myself with the task. Meet me, three days from now, at the same time and place.'
"On that understanding we parted. There had been little or no tenderness in his manner towards me, but only, as it were, the gloomy humour of a man who found himself despoiled by another of something which he had believed to be his own, but on which, in his heart, he had set no particular store. On my part, I felt towards him nothing but a sort of repulsion mixed with pity--pity for the so evidently forlorn condition of one whom ill-fortune had so remorselessly dogged. As for his good looks they were gone as completely as if they had never existed. I wondered at and half despised myself when I called to mind that there had been a time when I looked up to this man as the hero of my dreams.
"I met him three days later as I had promised. He had averred that there had been treachery at work, and I was curious to learn the result of his inquiry. What he had to tell was something of a shock to me. The letters he had written after his recovery from his illness had all, like the one written after landing, which duly reached me, been sent under cover to his aunt, Miss Pinchin. But by the time the second letter came to hand I was engaged to be married. Miss Pinchin, in the exercise of her discretion, instead of forwarding that and the subsequent ones direct to me, had put them into fresh envelopes and addressed them to Mr. Melray. Whether he had opened and read them, or whether, having had some hint from the spinster as to the probable nature of their contents, he had burnt them unread, is a point as to which I am as ignorant today as I was then. At any rate, not one of them ever reached the person for whom they were intended, and, for the time being, a dull fire of resentment was kindled in my heart.
"For all that, I was by no means prepared to look at the affair from the point of view of Evan Wildash. In brief he pressed me to elope with him. 'You loved me--that you cannot deny,' ran his plea. 'When I was compelled to leave you, you gave me your promise to remain true to me; and that you would have kept it I fully believe, had not the report of my death been spread about, and had you not found yourself, after your uncle's decease, alone in the world. Even then, but for my aunt's treachery, it would not have been too late for you to have saved yourself from marrying a man whom you can henceforth regard with nothing but loathing and contempt. Although you have failed me, I have been true to you. To-day you are infinitely dearer to me than you were four years ago. You belong to me. You are mine and mine only. We will fly together to some land beyond the seas. I have means at command and you shall not want. Come, then--now--at once! In twelve hours we shall be far beyond pursuit.'