gentleman called Mr. Hosmer Angel.”


“Yes, sir. I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if we had

got home all safe, and after that we met him—that is to say, Mr. Holmes,

I met him twice for walks, but after that father came back again, and Mr.

Hosmer Angel could not come to the house any more.”


“No?”


“Well, you know father didn’t like anything of the sort. He

wouldn’t have any visitors if he could help it, and he used to say that a

woman should be happy in her own family circle. But then, as I used to say to

mother, a woman wants her own circle to begin with, and I had not got mine

yet.”


“But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel? Did he make no attempt to see

you?”


“Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and Hosmer wrote

and said that it would be safer and better not to see each other until he had

gone. We could write in the meantime, and he used to write every day. I took

the letters in in the morning, so there was no need for father to know.”


“Were you engaged to the gentleman at this time?”


“Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. We were engaged after the first walk that we took.

Hosmer—Mr. Angel—was a cashier in an office in Leadenhall

Street—and—”


“What office?”


“That’s the worst of it, Mr. Holmes, I don’t know.”


“Where did he live, then?”


“He slept on the premises.”


“And you don’t know his address?”


“No—except that it was Leadenhall Street.”


“Where did you address your letters, then?”


“To the Leadenhall Street Post Office, to be left till called for. He

said that if they were sent to the office he would be chaffed by all the other

clerks about having letters from a lady, so I offered to typewrite them, like

he did his, but he wouldn’t have that, for he said that when I wrote them

they seemed to come from me, but when they were typewritten he always felt that

the machine had come between us. That will just show you how fond he was of me,