sed to discuss it with me. It was not from want of confidence in
me--there was the most complete love and confidence between us--but
it was out of his desire to keep all alarm away from me. He thought I
should brood over it if I knew all, and so he was silent."

"How did you know it, then?"

Mrs. Douglas's face lit with a quick smile. "Can a husband ever carry
about a secret all his life and a woman who loves him have no suspicion
of it? I knew it by his refusal to talk about some episodes in his
American life. I knew it by certain precautions he took. I knew it by
certain words he let fall. I knew it by the way he looked at unexpected
strangers. I was perfectly certain that he had some powerful enemies,
that he believed they were on his track, and that he was always on
his guard against them. I was so sure of it that for years I have been
terrified if ever he came home later than was expected."

"Might I ask," asked Holmes, "what the words were which attracted your
attention?"

"The Valley of Fear," the lady answered. "That was an expression he has
used when I questioned him. 'I have been in the Valley of Fear. I am not
out of it yet.'--'Are we never to get out of the Valley of Fear?' I have
asked him when I have seen him more serious than usual. 'Sometimes I
think that we never shall,' he has answered."

"Surely you asked him what he meant by the Valley of Fear?"

"I did; but his face would become very grave and he would shake his
head. 'It is bad enough that one of us should have been in its shadow,'
he said. 'Please God it shall never fall upon you!' It was some real
valley in which he had lived and in which something terrible had
occurred to him, of that I am certain; but I can tell you no more."

"And he never mentioned any names?"

"Yes, he was delirious with fever once when he had his hunting accident
three years ago. Then I remember that there was a name that came
continually to his lips. He spoke it with anger and a sort of horror.
McGinty was the name--Bodymaster McGinty. I asked him when he recovered
who Bodymaster McGinty was, and whose body he was master of. 'Never of
mine, thank God!' he answered with a laugh, and that was all I could get
from him. But there is a connection between Bodymaster McGinty and the
Valley of Fear."

"There is one other point," said Inspector MacDonald. "You met Mr.
Douglas in a boarding house in London, did you not, and became engaged
to him there? Was there any romanc