The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Part 44 (2/2)

”Perhaps, Mrs Moulton, you would like my friend and me to leave the rooive an opinion,” reentleman, ”we've had just a little too much secrecy over this business already For hts of it” He was a small, wiry, sunburnt man, clean-shaven, with a sharp face and alert ht away,” said the lady ”Frank here and I met in '84, in McQuire's ca a claied to each other, Frank and I; but then one day father struck a rich pocket and made a pile, while poor Frank here had a clairew the poorer was Frank; so at last pa wouldn't hear of our engageer, and he took h; so he followedabout it It would only have made him mad to know, so we just fixed it all up for ourselves Frank said that he would go and make his pile, too, and never come back to claim me until he had as much as pa So then I proed myself not to marry anyone else while he lived

'Why shouldn't we be ht away, then,' said he, 'and then I will feel sure of you; and I won't claim to be your husband until I come back?' Well, we talked it over, and he had fixed it all up so nicely, with a clergyht there; and then Frank went off to seek his fortune, and I went back to pa

”The next I heard of Frank was that he was in Montana, and then he went prospecting in Arizona, and then I heard of hi newspaper story about how a miners' camp had been attacked by Apache Indians, and there wasthe killed I fainted dead away, and I was very sick for ht I had a decline and took me to half the doctors in 'Frisco Not a word of news came for a year and more, so that I never doubted that Frank was really dead Then Lord St Sie was arranged, and pa was very pleased, but I felt all the time that no man on this earth would ever take the place in iven to my poor Frank

”Still, if I had married Lord St Simon, of course I'd have done my duty by him We can't command our love, but we can our actions I went to the altar with hiood a wife as it was in ine what I felt when, just as I ca and looking at host at first; but when I looked again there he was still, with a kind of question in his eyes, as if to ask lad or sorry to see hi round, and the words of the clergyman were just like the buzz of a bee in my ear I didn't knohat to do Should I stop the service and ain, and he seeer to his lips to tell me to be still Then I saw hi me a note As I passed his pew on the way out I dropped my bouquet over to him, and he slipped the note into my hand when he returnedn to me to do so

Of course I never doubted for a moment that my first duty was now to hiht direct

”When I got back I told my maid, who had known him in California, and had always been his friend I ordered her to say nothing, but to get a few things packed and ht to have spoken to Lord St Simon, but it was dreadful hard before his reat people I just made up my mind to run away and explain afterwards I hadn't been at the table ten minutes before I saw Frank out of theat the other side of the road He beckoned tointo the Park

I slipped out, put onor other about Lord St Simon to me--seemed to me from the little I heard as if he had a little secret of his own before et away froether, and ae drove to sos he had taken in Gordon Square, and that wasFrank had been a prisoner a the Apaches, had escaped, caiven hiland, followedof ”

”I saw it in a paper,” explained the Aave the name and the church but not where the lady lived”

”Then we had a talk as to e should do, and Frank was all for openness, but I was so ashamed of it all that I felt as if I should like to vanish away and never see any of the a line to pa, perhaps, to show him that I was alive It ful toround that breakfast-table and waiting for s and made a bundle of them, so that I should not be traced, and dropped them away somewhere where no one could find theone on to Paris to-entleh how he found us is more than I can think, and he showed us very clearly and kindly that I rong and that Frank was right, and that we should be putting ourselves in the wrong if ere so secret Then he offered to give us a chance of talking to Lord St Siht away round to his rooms at once Now, Robert, you have heard it all, and I aiven you pain, and I hope that you do not think very meanly of id attitude, but had listened with a frowning brow and a co narrative

”Excuse me,” he said, ”but it is not my custom to discuss my most intimate personal affairs in this public ive o?”

”Oh, certainly, if it would give you any pleasure” He put out his hand and coldly grasped that which she extended to hiested Holmes, ”that you would have joined us in a friendly supper”

”I think that there you ask a little too much,” responded his Lordshi+p ”I may be forced to acquiesce in these recent developments, but I can hardly be expected to make merry over them I think that with your perht” He included us all in a sweeping bow and stalked out of the room

”Then I trust that you at least will honour me with your company,” said Sherlock Holmes ”It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr Moulton, for I am one of those who believe that the folly of a one years will not prevent our children fro so which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes”

”The case has been an interesting one,” remarked Holmes when our visitors had left us, ”because it serves to show very clearly how siht see could be more natural than the sequence of events as narrated by this lady, and nothing stranger than the result when viewed, for instance, by Mr

Lestrade of Scotland Yard”

”You were not yourself at fault at all, then?”

”From the first, two facts were very obvious to o the wedding ceremony, the other that she had repented of it within a fewhad occurred during the e herbe? She could not have spoken to anyone when she was out, for she had been in the coroom Had she seen someone, then? If she had, it must be someone from America because she had spent so short a time in this country that she could hardly have allowed anyone to acquire so deep an influence over her that the e her plans so completely You see we have already arrived, by a process of exclusion, at the idea that she ht have seen an American Then who could this American be, and why should he possess so ht be a husband Her young woh scenes and under strange conditions So far I had got before I ever heard Lord St Simon's narrative When he told us of a e in the bride'sa note as the dropping of a bouquet, of her resort to her confidential --which inpossession of that which another person has a prior claione off with a man, and the man was either a lover or was a previous husband--the chances being in favour of the latter”

”And how in the world did you find theht have been difficult, but friend Lestrade held information in his hands the value of which he did not hihest importance, but more valuable still was it to know that within a week he had settled his bill at one of the most select London hotels”

”How did you deduce the select?”

”By the select prices Eight shi+llings for a bed and eightpence for a glass of sherry pointed to one of the most expensive hotels There are not e at that rate

In the second one which I visited in Northumberland Avenue, I learned by an inspection of the book that Francis H Moulton, an Aentle over the entries against him, I came upon the very items which I had seen in the duplicate bill His letters were to be forwarded to 226 Gordon Square; so thither I travelled, and being fortunate enough to find the loving couple at hoive them some paternal advice and to point out to them that it would be better in every way that they should eneral public and to Lord St Simon in particular I invited them to meet him here, and, as you see, I ood result,” I reracious”