mes; "when was this interview?"

"Last December--four months ago."

"Pray proceed."

"Mr. Woodley seemed to me to be a most odious person. He was for ever
making eyes at me--a coarse, puffy-faced, red-moustached young man, with
his hair plastered down on each side of his forehead. I thought that he
was perfectly hateful--and I was sure that Cyril would not wish me to
know such a person."

"Oh, Cyril is his name!" said Holmes, smiling.

The young lady blushed and laughed.

"Yes, Mr. Holmes; Cyril Morton, an electrical engineer, and we hope
to be married at the end of the summer. Dear me, how DID I get talking
about him? What I wished to say was that Mr. Woodley was perfectly
odious, but that Mr. Carruthers, who was a much older man, was more
agreeable. He was a dark, sallow, clean-shaven, silent person; but he
had polite manners and a pleasant smile. He inquired how we were left,
and on finding that we were very poor he suggested that I should come
and teach music to his only daughter, aged ten. I said that I did not
like to leave my mother, on which he suggested that I should go home
to her every week-end, and he offered me a hundred a year, which was
certainly splendid pay. So it ended by my accepting, and I went down
to Chiltern Grange, about six miles from Farnham. Mr. Carruthers was
a widower, but he had engaged a lady-housekeeper, a very respectable,
elderly person, called Mrs. Dixon, to look after his establishment. The
child was a dear, and everything promised well. Mr. Carruthers was very
kind and very musical, and we had most pleasant evenings together. Every
week-end I went home to my mother in town.

"The first flaw in my happiness was the arrival of the red-moustached
Mr. Woodley. He came for a visit of a week, and oh, it seemed three
months to me! He was a dreadful person, a bully to everyone else, but to
me something infinitely worse. He made odious love to me, boasted of his
wealth, said that if I married him I would have the finest diamonds in
London, and finally, when I would have nothing to do with him, he seized
me in his arms one day after dinner--he was hideously strong--and he
swore that he would not let me go until I had kissed him. Mr. Carruthers
came in and tore him off from me, on which he turned upon his own host,
knocking him down and cutting his face open. That was the end of his
visit, as you can imagine. Mr. Carruthers apologized to me next day,
and assured me that I should never b