The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Difficult Problem, by
Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: A Difficult Problem
1900

Author: Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

Release Date: September 29, 2007 [EBook #22807]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DIFFICULT PROBLEM ***

Produced by David Widger

A DIFFICULT PROBLEM

By Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

Copyright The F. M. Lupton Publishing Company. 1900

"A LADY to see you, sir."

I looked up and was at once impressed by the grace and beauty of the
person thus introduced to me.

"Is there anything I can do to serve you?" I asked, rising.

She cast me a child-like look full of trust and candor as she seated
herself in the chair I pointed out to her.

"I believe so, I hope so," she earnestly assured me. "I--I am in great
trouble. I have just lost my husband--but it is not that. It is the slip
of paper I found on my dresser, and which--which----"

She was trembling violently and her words were fast becoming incoherent.
I calmed her and asked her to relate her story just as it had happened;
and after a few minutes of silent struggle she succeeded in collecting
herself sufficiently to respond with some degree of connection and
self-possession.

"I have been married six months. My name is Lucy Holmes. For the last
few weeks my husband and myself have been living in an apartment house
on Fifty-ninth Street, and as we had not a care in the world, we were
very happy till Mr. Holmes was called away on business to Philadelphia.
This was two weeks ago. Five days later I received an affectionate
letter from him, in which he promised to come back the next day; and the
news so delighted me that I accepted an invitation to the theater
from some intimate friends of ours. The next morning I naturally felt
fatigued and rose late; but I was very cheerful, for I expected my
husband at noon. And now comes the perplexing mystery. In the course
of dressing myself I stepped to my bureau, and seeing a small
newspaper-slip attached to the cushion by a pin, I drew it off and read
it. It was a death notice, and my