he daring speculations of the writer. My mind ran upon our
late visitor,--her smiles, the deep rich tones of her voice, the
strange mystery which overhung her life. If she were seventeen at the
time of her father's disappearance she must be seven-and-twenty now,--a
sweet age, when youth has lost its self-consciousness and become a
little sobered by experience. So I sat and mused, until such dangerous
thoughts came into my head that I hurried away to my desk and plunged
furiously into the latest treatise upon pathology. What was I, an army
surgeon with a weak leg and a weaker banking-account, that I should
dare to think of such things? She was a unit, a factor,--nothing more.
If my future were black, it was better surely to face it like a man
than to attempt to brighten it by mere will-o'-the-wisps of the
imagination.

Chapter III

In Quest of a Solution

It was half-past five before Holmes returned. He was bright, eager,
and in excellent spirits,--a mood which in his case alternated with
fits of the blackest depression.

"There is no great mystery in this matter," he said, taking the cup of
tea which I had poured out for him. "The facts appear to admit of only
one explanation."

"What! you have solved it already?"

"Well, that would be too much to say. I have discovered a suggestive
fact, that is all. It is, however, VERY suggestive. The details are
still to be added. I have just found, on consulting the back files of
the Times, that Major Sholto, of Upper Norword, late of the 34th Bombay
Infantry, died upon the 28th of April, 1882."

"I may be very obtuse, Holmes, but I fail to see what this suggests."

"No? You surprise me. Look at it in this way, then. Captain Morstan
disappears. The only person in London whom he could have visited is
Major Sholto. Major Sholto denies having heard that he was in London.
Four years later Sholto dies. WITHIN A WEEK OF HIS DEATH Captain
Morstan's daughter receives a valuable present, which is repeated from
year to year, and now culminates in a letter which describes her as a
wronged woman. What wrong can it refer to except this deprivation of
her father? And why should the presents begin immediately after
Sholto's death, unless it is that Sholto's heir knows something of the
mystery and desires to make compensation? Have you any alternative
theory which will meet the facts?"

"But what a strange compensation! And how strangely made! Why, too,
should h