'He had been--going to marry me twice--and we were going to New Zealand.' 'Ah!--I remember about you,' returned the legitimate widow calmly and not unkindly.

'You must be Selina; he spoke of you now and then, and said that his relations with you would always be a weight on his conscience.
Well; the history of my life with him is soon told.

When he came back from the Crimea he became acquainted with me at my home in the north, and we were married within a month of first knowing each other.
Unfortunately, after living together a few months, we could not agree; and after a particularly sharp quarrel, in which, perhaps, I was most in the wrong--as I don't mind owning here by his graveside--he went away from me, declaring he would buy his discharge and emigrate to New Zealand, and never come back to me any more.

The next thing I heard was that he had died suddenly at Mellstock at some low carouse; and as he had left me in such anger to live no more with me, I wouldn't come down to his funeral, or do anything in relation to him.

'Twas temper, I know, but that was the fact.