CHAPTER XIII.

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.

"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 to-day 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.'

"Such and such like were the persuasions and arguments made use of by him. But I had no longer any love for him (if, indeed, I had ever had any)--no, not the least bit! Rather was I frightened of him. His restless manner, his strange jerky movements, a peculiar twitching of one corner of his mouth, and an indescribable something which flashed out at me every now and again from the sombre depths of his eyes, made me timorous of him and involuntarily caused me to shrink from too close a proximity to him. It seemed to me then--as, with still more reason, it seems clear to me now--that he had never thoroughly recovered from the effects of his sunstroke, and that, to a certain extent, he could hardly be held accountable for what he might either say or do.

"I will not weary you with the details of all that passed between us. I was afraid to take too indignant a tone with him, lest my doing so should provoke an explosion of passion on his part, which might end in a way disastrous to one or both of us. There was, however, no lack of firmness in the way in which I gave him to understand that between himself and me all was at an end for ever, and that that must be our last interview. He pleaded and urged me to reconsider my determination, but to no purpose. Finally, finding that I had only half-an-hour left in which to get home and change my dress before dinner, I was compelled to leave him somewhat abruptly. 'Shake hands before I go, and let us part as friends,' I said.

"He stared at my extended hand for a moment or two with bent brows. Then, with a strange harsh laugh which seemed to me to have an echo of insanity in it, he said: 'Part as friends--you and I? Never! We are lovers, not friends. You are mine and I am yours. Not even death shall have power to divide us.' Then, pulling his hat over his brows and turning quickly on his heel, he flung me a parting look over his shoulder. 'It is _au revoir_, and not farewell,' he exclaimed with a wave of his hand, and so strode swiftly away through the gloaming."