ve to be of importance, to
furnish me with the facts of your case without further delay?"
Our visitor again passed his hand over his forehead, as if he found it
bitterly hard. From every gesture and expression I could see that he was
a reserved, self-contained man, with a dash of pride in his nature, more
likely to hide his wounds than to expose them. Then suddenly, with a
fierce gesture of his closed hand, like one who throws reserve to the
winds, he began.
"The facts are these, Mr. Holmes," said he. "I am a married man, and
have been so for three years. During that time my wife and I have loved
each other as fondly and lived as happily as any two that ever were
joined. We have not had a difference, not one, in thought or word or
deed. And now, since last Monday, there has suddenly sprung up a barrier
between us, and I find that there is something in her life and in her
thought of which I know as little as if she were the woman who brushes
by me in the street. We are estranged, and I want to know why.
"Now there is one thing that I want to impress upon you before I go
any further, Mr. Holmes. Effie loves me. Don't let there be any mistake
about that. She loves me with her whole heart and soul, and never more
than now. I know it. I feel it. I don't want to argue about that. A man
can tell easily enough when a woman loves him. But there's this secret
between us, and we can never be the same until it is cleared."
"Kindly let me have the facts, Mr. Munro," said Holmes, with some
impatience.
"I'll tell you what I know about Effie's history. She was a widow when
I met her first, though quite young--only twenty-five. Her name then was
Mrs. Hebron. She went out to America when she was young, and lived in
the town of Atlanta, where she married this Hebron, who was a lawyer
with a good practice. They had one child, but the yellow fever broke out
badly in the place, and both husband and child died of it. I have seen
his death certificate. This sickened her of America, and she came back
to live with a maiden aunt at Pinner, in Middlesex. I may mention that
her husband had left her comfortably off, and that she had a capital of
about four thousand five hundred pounds, which had been so well invested
by him that it returned an average of seven per cent. She had only been
six months at Pinner when I met her; we fell in love with each other,
and we married a few weeks afterwards.
"I am a hop merchant myself, and as I have
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