The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor 单身贵族（六）

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

developments, 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 honor 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 acquire 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 American be, and why should he

possess so much influence over her? It might be a lover; it might

be a husband. Her young womanhood 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 confidential maid, and of her very

significant allusion to claim-jumping--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 favor of the latter."

"And how in the world did you find them?"

"It might have been difficult, but friend Lestrade held

information 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 eight-pence

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

American gentleman, had left only the day before, and on looking

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

had seen in the duplicate bill. His letters were to be forwarded

to 226 Gordon Square; so thither I travelled, and being fortunate

enough to find the loving couple at home, I ventured to give them

some paternal advice and to point out to them that it would be

better in every way that they should make their position a little

clearer both to the general public and to Lord St. Simon in

particular. I invited them to meet him here, and, as you see, I

made him keep the appointment."

"But with no very good result," I remarked. "His conduct was

certainly not very gracious."

"Ah, Watson," said Holmes, smiling, "perhaps you would not be

very gracious either, if, after all the trouble of wooing and

wedding, you found yourself deprived in an instant of wife and of

fortune. I think that we may judge Lord St. Simon very mercifully

and thank our stars that we are never likely to find ourselves in

the same position. Draw your chair up and hand me my violin, for

the only problem we have still to solve is how to while away

these bleak autumnal evenings."