"He is, ma'am; and has been working for me at No.—Fourth street."
"Then he is not my husband," replied the poor wife, bursting into tears. "My husband is a clerk." In the bitterness of a keen disappointment, rendered sharper by doubt and fear, Mrs. Fletcher wept for some minutes. When she could command her feelings to some extent, she thanked the tailor for calling, and repeated what she had said, that the man at his house could not be her husband.
"He is from Cincinnati, ma'am; and goes there once in every two weeks. I know that he has wife and child there," said the man.
"Still he cannot be my husband," replied Mrs. Fletcher; "for my husband is not a tailor."
"No, not in that case, certainly." And the man owed and withdrew.
All day long the wife waited for some more satisfactory reply to her advertisement, but no farther response to it was made. The call of the tailor seemed like a mockery of her unhappy condition.
Night came, and all remained in doubt and darkness; and then the mind of Mrs. Fletcher turned to the visit of the tailor, half despairingly, in order to find some feeble gleam of hope. Perhaps, she said to herself, as she thought about it, there is some mistake. Perhaps it is my husband after all, and the man is in some error about his being a tailor. As she thought, it suddenly flashed through her mind that there had been a good deal of mystery made by her husband about his situation in Cincinnati as well as in Louisville, which always struck her as a little strange. Could it be possible that his real business was that of a tailor? All at once she remembered that her husband had been particularly silent in regard to his early history. Trembling with excitement, she left the house about eight o'clock in the evening, and started for the place where she remembered that the tailor said he lived. He was in his shop, and recollected her the moment she entered.
"Can I see the man you told me was named Fletcher?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am; and I sincerely hope there has been some mistake, and that you will find him to be your husband; for he is very ill, and needs to be nursed by a careful hand."
Mrs. Fletcher followed the tailor up stairs, her heart scarcely beating under the pressure of suspense. In a small chamber in the third story, the atmosphere of which was close, oppressive, and filled with an offensive odour, she was shown a man lying upon a bed. She needed not a second glance, as the dim light fell upon his pale, emaciated face, to decide her doubts. Her husband lay before her. Eagerly she called his name, but his eyes did not open. She spoke to him again and again, but he did not recognise, even if he heard her voice.