HIDDEN WOMAN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3574, 25 February 1914, Page 3

HIDDEN WOMAN.

The sudden death of a Montieello (Virginia) lawyer, Mr Melvin \\. Couch, has disclosed the fact that in a secret room at the rear of his office, the closed door of which was always a mytery to his clients and friends, lie had kept hidden a woman named Adelaide Branco for 15 years (states the New York corerspondent of the “Daily Mai”).

The revelation came when Mrs Omi'-li, called to the office by the police, asked for the forbidden door to be burst open. Crouching in the corner was a wild-eyed , frightened woman-ayth tangled hair falling about her pale face. She pleaded that she knew nothing of Mr Couch s death, and that on going to call him sljp found him dead on the lounge where he often slept. The secret room was fitted out as a combined bed-sitting-cooking apartment. The woman confessed that .she never went out during the day and only occasionally at night. She seemed as though her intelligence .was dulled by her mode of existence. Mr Couch was a grave, much-re-spected lawyer -associated with many notable cases. An autopsy showed that his death was caused by the rupture of a blood-vessel near the heart. RECLUSE FOR LOVE. The woman was induced to talk of her secluded existence as . “the other woman' in Mr Couch’s life. Broken with grief,* she is in a hospital. “Do you think,’’ she asked, "that a woman would be a recluse—a hermit —for a man for years unless she loved him with all the strength of her soul. I loved Mr Couch for 15 years. W hen first I met him I was selling a hook. I went from office to office in Monti.cello -and at last —I never will forget that day—l entered Mr Couch’s office. T slaved for him, gave up the world for him; yet I am denied the poor consolation of seeing the'dust thrown on his grave. “Yes, I lived in -a cell, you might say, but it was a cell of my own making, not a pretty home. But I was happy. Once Mr Couch took me out. 1 made him. I spent the morning talking to the girls in ’a shop. . on cannot imagine how hungry a woman gets to talk to one of Tier sex —just to talk about nothing at all. Men don’t understand that.”