moved in, so I thought that if I could be of any help me more than all the rest, for there was something to you in any—’ indescribably guilty about them. My wife had always
“ ‘Ay, we’ll just ask ye when we want ye,’ said she, been a woman of a frank, open nature, and it gave and shut the door in my face. Annoyed at the churl- me a chill to see her slinking into her own room, and ish rebuff, I turned my back and walked home. All crying out and wincing when her own husband spoke evening, though I tried to think of other things, my to her. mind would still turn to the apparition at the window “ ‘You awake, Jack!’ she cried, with a nervous and the rudeness of the woman. I determined to say laugh. ‘Why, I thought that nothing could awake nothing about the former to my wife, for she is a ner- you.’ vous, highly strung woman, and I had no wish that “ ‘Where have you been?’ I asked, more sternly.
she would share the unpleasant impression which
had been produced upon myself. I remarked to her, “ ‘I don’t wonder that you are surprised,’ said she, however, before I fell asleep, that the cottage was now and I could see that her fingers were trembling as occupied, to which she returned no reply. she undid the fastenings of her mantle. ‘Why, I never
been a standing jest in the family that nothing could The fact is that I felt as though I were choking, and had a perfect longing for a breath of fresh air. I really ever wake me during the night. And yet somehow on “I am usually an extremely sound sleeper. It has remember having done such a thing in my life before.
that particular night, whether it may have been the think that I should have fainted if I had not gone out.
slight excitement produced by my little adventure or I stood at the door for a few minutes, and now I am not I know not, but I slept much more lightly than quite myself again.’ usual. Half in my dreams I was dimly conscious that “All the time that she was telling me this story she something was going on in the room, and gradually never once looked in my direction, and her voice was became aware that my wife had dressed herself and quite unlike her usual tones. It was evident to me that was slipping on her mantle and her bonnet. My lips she was saying what was false. I said nothing in reply, were parted to murmur out some sleepy words of sur- but turned my face to the wall, sick at heart, with my prise or remonstrance at this untimely preparation, mind filled with a thousand venomous doubts and when suddenly my half-opened eyes fell upon her suspicions. What was it that my wife was concealing face, illuminated by the candle-light, and astonish- from me? Where had she been during that strange ment held me dumb. She wore an expression such expedition? I felt that I should have no peace until as I had never seen before—such as I should have I knew, and yet I shrank from asking her again after thought her incapable of assuming. She was deadly once she had told me what was false. All the rest of pale and breathing fast, glancing furtively towards the night I tossed and tumbled, framing theory after the bed as she fastened her mantle, to see if she had theory, each more unlikely than the last.
disturbed me. Then, thinking that I was still asleep, “I should have gone to the City that day, but I was she slipped noiselessly from the room, and an instant too disturbed in my mind to be able to pay attention later I heard a sharp creaking which could only come to business matters. My wife seemed to be as upset from the hinges of the front door. I sat up in bed as myself, and I could see from the little questioning and rapped my knuckles against the rail to make cer- glances which she kept shooting at me that she under-tain that I was truly awake. Then I took my watch stood that I disbelieved her statement, and that she from under the pillow. It was three in the morning. was at her wits’ end what to do. We hardly exchanged What on this earth could my wife be doing out on the a word during breakfast, and immediately afterwards country road at three in the morning? I went out for a walk, that I might think the matter “I had sat for about twenty minutes turning the out in the fresh morning air. thing over in my mind and trying to find some possible explanation. The more I thought, the more ex- in the grounds, and was back in Norbury by one “I went as far as the Crystal Palace, spent an hour traordinary and inexplicable did it appear. I was still
o’clock. It happened that my way took me past the
puzzling over it when I heard the door gently close
cottage, and I stopped for an instant to look at the
again, and her footsteps coming up the stairs.
windows, and to see if I could catch a glimpse of the
“ ‘Where in the world have you been, Effie?’ I strange face which had looked out at me on the day asked as she entered. before. As I stood there, imagine my surprise, Mr.
“She gave a violent start and a kind of gasping Holmes, when the door suddenly opened and my cry when I spoke, and that cry and start troubled wife walked out.