No visitors except those in the immediate neighbourhood had ever been known to enter their doors. But one day their comparative isolation had been disturbed. According to the account of one of the two maids, a handsome man about thirty with very urbane and courteous manners had called and requested that his name should be taken in to the ladies. The name he gave was Edwards. The mention of this name, when the maid took it in to the drawing-room where the two women were seated, seemed to arouse consternation in both mother and daughter. After a whispered conversation between the two, Mrs. Baradine went into the hall and took the strange visitor to her mother. The door of the room was closed, and the three sat together for over an hour. At the end of that time, Mrs. Baradine went out with the man Edwards and they did not return till it wanted a few minutes to dinner. The visitor stayed the night, sleeping in one of the spare bedrooms at the back of the house. He stopped on the next day. From a remark dropped by Mrs. Mayhew to the maid after breakfast, she gathered that Edwards was taking his departure on the following morning. During the whole of his visit, the demeanour of both mother and daughter exhibited symptoms of great depression and anxiety. They all dined together on the evening of the second day. After dinner Mrs. Mayhew went out for a stroll, leaving Edwards and Mrs. Baradine in the dining-room by themselves. The housemaid also went out, and the rest of the story was finished by the other servant, the cook. This woman, very curious as to this strange visitor, admitted that twice she went into the hall and listened at the dining-room door. The second time she heard voices high in altercation, but could not gather what was being said. Suddenly, as she sat in the kitchen, speculating on what was taking place between her young mistress and the man Edwards, a shot rang out, followed in a fraction of time by a second one. Sensing that a tragedy had happened, she rushed into the room and was confronted with a ghastly spectacle. Mrs. Baradine was lying on the floor dead, and beside her Edwards with a bullet through his brain. Screaming, she fled into the village in search of the local constable, whom she brought back to the house. Five minutes after they came back, Mrs. Mayhew returned from her walk and fainted at the awful sight. Later on, the mother told her story. Mrs. Baradine was not a widow; her real name was Edwards and she was the wife of the man who had killed her, and who, realizing the impossibility of escape, destroyed himself. Hers had been a most unhappy marriage, and, to escape from her husband’s brutality, she had left him and hid herself, as she fondly hoped, in this quiet Devonshire village under an assumed name.