صفحة 623 من 657

"I was driven over by my employer, who was as amiable as ever,

and was introduced by him that evening to his wife and the child.

There was no truth, Mr. Holmes, in the conjecture which seemed to

us to be probable in your rooms at Baker Street. Mrs. Rucastle is

not mad. I found her to be a silent, pale-faced woman, much

younger than her husband, not more than thirty, I should think,

while he can hardly be less than forty-five. From their

conversation I have gathered that they have been married about

seven years, that he was a widower, and that his only child by

the first wife was the daughter who has gone to Philadelphia. Mr.

Rucastle told me in private that the reason why she had left them

was that she had an unreasoning aversion to her stepmother. As

the daughter could not have been less than twenty, I can quite

imagine that her position must have been uncomfortable with her

father's young wife.