第 35 页

his eye which made me think that he had not been disappointed

in his conclusions.

"They have laid the supper, then," he said, rubbing his

hands.

"You seem to expect company. They have laid for five."

"Yes, I fancy we may have some company dropping in," said

he. "I am surprised that Lord St. Simon has not already arrived.

Ha! I fancy that I hear his step now upon the stairs."

It was indeed our visitor of the afternoon who came bustling

in, dangling his glasses more vigorously than ever, and with a

very perturbed expression upon his aristocratic features.

"My messenger reached you, then?" asked Holmes.

"Yes, and I confess that the contents startled me beyond

measure. Have you good authority for what you say?"

"The best possible."

Lord St. Simon sank into a chair and passed his hand over his

forehead.

"What will the Duke say," he murmured, "when he hears

that one of the family has been subjected to such humiliation?"

"It is the purest accident. I cannot allow that there is any

humiliation. "

"Ah, you look on these things from another standpoint."

"I fail to see that anyone is to blame. I can hardly see how the

lady could have acted otherwise, though her abrupt method of

doing it was undoubtedly to be regretted. Having no mother, she

had no one to advise her at such a crisis."

"It was a slight, sir, a public slight," said Lord St. Simon,

tapping his fingers upon the table.

"You must make allowance for this poor girl, placed in so

unprecedented a position."

"I will make no allowance. I am very angry indeed, and I

have been shamefully used."

"I think that I heard a ring," said Holmes. "Yes, there are

steps on the landing. If I cannot persuade you to take a lenient

view of the matter, Lord St. Simon, I have brought an advocate

here who may be more successful." He opened the door and

ushered in a lady and gentleman. "Lord St. Simon," said he

"allow me to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hay

Moulton. The lady, I think, you have already met."

At the sight of these newcomers our client had sprung from his

seat and stood very erect, with his eyes cast down and his hand

thrust into the breast of his frock-coat, a picture of offended

dignity. The lady had taken a quick step forward and had held

out her hand to him, but he still refused to raise his eyes. It was

as well for his resolution, perhaps, for her pleading face was one

which it was hard to resist.

"You're angry, Robert," said she. "Well, I guess you have

every cause to be."

"Pray make no apology to me," said Lord St. Simon bitterly.

"Oh, yes, I know that I have treated you real bad and that I

should have spoken to you before I went; but I was kind of

rattled, and from the time when I saw Frank here again I just

didn't know what I was doing or saying. I only wonder I didn't

fall down and do a faint right there before the altar."

"Perhaps, Mrs. Moulton, you would like my friend and me to

leave the room while you explain this matter?"

"If I may give an opinion," remarked the strange gentleman,

"we've had just a little too much secrecy over this business

already. For my part, I should like all Europe and America to

hear the rights of it." He was a small, wiry, sunburnt man,

clean-shaven, with a sharp face and alert manner.

"Then I'll tell our story right away," said the lady. "Frank

here and I met in '84, in McQuire's camp, near the Rockies,

where pa was working a claim. We were engaged 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 claim that petered out

and came to nothing. The richer pa grew the poorer was Frank;

so at last pa wouldn't hear of our engagement lasting any longer,

and he took me away to 'Frisco. Frank wouldn't throw up his

hand, though; so he followed me there, and he saw me without

pa knowing anything about 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 promised to wait

for him to the end of time and pledged myself not to marry

anyone else while he lived. 'Why shouldn't we be married right

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

clergyman all ready in waiting, that we just did it right 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 him

from New Mexico. After that came a long newspaper story about

how a miners' camp had been attacked by Apache Indians, and

there was my Frank's name among the killed. I fainted dead

away, and I was very sick for months after. Pa thought 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. Simon came to 'Frisco,

and we came to London, and a marriage 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 my heart that had been given 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 him with the intention to

make him just as good a wife as it was in me to be. But you may

imagine what I felt when, just as I came to the altar rails, I

glanced back and saw Frank standing and looking at me out of

the first pew. I thought it was his ghost at first; but when I

looked again there he was still, with a kind of question in his

eyes, as if to ask me whether I were glad or sorry to see him. I

wonder I didn't drop. I know that everything was turning round,

and the words of the clergyman were just like the buzz of a bee

in my ear. I didn't know what to do. Should I stop the service

and make a scene in the church? I glanced at him again, and he

seemed to know what I was thinking, for he raised his finger to

his lips to tell me to be still. Then I saw him scribble on a piece

of paper, and I knew that he was writing 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 returned me the

flowers. It was only a line asking me to join him when he made

the sign to me to do so. Of course I never doubted for a moment

that my first duty was now to him, and I determined to do just

whatever he might 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 my ulster ready. I

know I ought to have spoken to Lord St. Simon, but it was

dreadful hard before his mother and all those great 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 the

window at the other side of the road. He beckoned to me and

then began walking into the Park. I slipped out, put on my

things, and followed him. Some woman came talking something

or 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

marriage also -- but I managed to get away from her and soon

overtook Frank. We got into a cab together, and away we drove

to some lodgings he had taken in Gordon Square, and that was

my true wedding after all those years of waiting. Frank had been

a prisoner among the Apaches, had escaped, came on to 'Frisco,

found that I had given him up for dead and had gone to England,

followed me there, and had come upon me at last on the very

morning of my second wedding."

"I saw it in a paper," explained the American. "It gave the

name and the church but not where the lady lived."

"Then we had a talk as to what we 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 them again --

just sending a line to pa, perhaps, to show him that I was alive.

It was awful to me to think of all those lords and ladies sitting

round that breakfast-table and waiting for me to come back. So

Frank took my wedding-clothes and things and made a bundle of

them, so that I should not be traced, and dropped them away

somewhere where no one could find them. It is likely that we

should have gone on to Paris to-morrow, only that this good

gentleman, Mr. Holmes, came round to us this evening, though

how he found us is more than I can think, and he showed us very

clearly and kindly that I was wrong and that Frank was right, and

that we should be putting ourselves in the wrong if we were so

secret. Then he offered to give us a chance of talking to Lord St.

Simon alone, and so we came right away round to his rooms at

once. Now, Robert, you have heard it all, and I am very sorry if

I have given you pain, and I hope that you do not think very

meanly of me."

Lord St. Simon had by no means relaxed his rigid attitude, but

had listened with a frowning brow and a compressed lip to this

long narrative.

"Excuse me," he said, "but it is not my custom to discuss

my most intimate personal affairs in this public manner."

"Then you won't forgive me? You won't shake hands before

I go?"

"Oh, certainly, if it would give you any pleasure." He put out

his hand and coldly grasped that which she extended to him.

"I had hoped," suggested Holmes, "that you would have

joined us in a friendly supper."

"I think that there you ask a little too much," responded his

Lordship. "I may be forced to acquiesce in these recent develop-

ments, but I can hardly be expected to make merry over them. I

think that with your permission I will now wish you all a very

good-night." 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 monarch and the blundering of a minister in

far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day

citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag 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 simple the explanation may be of an affair which at

first sight seems to be almost inexplicable. Nothing 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 me, the one

that the lady had been quite willing to undergo the wedding

ceremony, the other that she had repented of it within a few

minutes of returning home. Obviously something had occurred

during the morning, then, to cause her to change her mind. What

could that something be? She could not have spoken to anyone

when she was out, for she had been in the company of the

bridegroom. 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 ac-

quire so deep an influence over her that the mere sight of him

would induce her to change her plans so completely. You see we

have already arrived, by a process of exclusion, at the idea that

she might have seen an American. Then who could this Ameri-

can be, and why should he possess so much influence over her?

It might be a lover; it might be a husband. Her young woman-

hood had, I knew, been spent in rough 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 man in a pew, of the change in

the bride's manner, of so transparent a device for obtaining a

note as the dropping of a bouquet, of her resort to her confiden-

tial maid, and of her very significant allusion to claimjumping --

which in miners' parlance means taking possession of that which

another person has a prior claim to -- the whole situation became

absolutely clear. She had gone 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 them?"

"It might have been difficult, but friend Lestrade held infor-

mation in his hands the value of which he did not himself know.

The initials were, of course, of the highest 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 shillings for a bed and eightpence

for a glass of sherry pointed to one of the most expensive hotels.

There are not many in London which charge 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 Ameri-

can gentleman, had left only the day before, and on looking over

the entries against him, I came upon the very items which I had