"Nothing. He spent August with her and the children in Norfolk.
He was just the same as he'd always been. We went
down for two or three days, my wife and I, and I played golf
with him. He came back to town in September to let his
partner go away, and Amy stayed on in the country.
They'd taken a house for six weeks, and at the end of her tenancy
she wrote to tell him on which day she was arriving in London.
He answered from Paris. He said he'd made up his mind not to
live with her any more."

"What explanation did he give?"

"My dear fellow, he gave no explanation. I've seen the
letter. It wasn't more than ten lines."

"But that's extraordinary."

We happened then to cross the street, and the traffic
prevented us from speaking. What Colonel MacAndrew had told
me seemed very improbable, and I suspected that Mrs.
Strickland, for reasons of her own, had concealed from him
some part of the facts. It was clear that a man after
seventeen years of wedlock did not leave his wife without
certain occurrences which must have led her to suspect that
all was not well with their married life. The Colonel caught me up.

"Of course, there was no explanation he could give except that
he'd gone off with a woman. I suppose he thought she could
find that out for herself. That's the sort of chap he was."