"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.'