Three miners stop at a country inn for refreshments and become interested in the story of an idiotic woman servant in the place. The owner of the inn tells the story of the woman’s life. Deserted by her husband she searched for him for years in vain and after she had given him up for dead and had become engaged to the son of the narrator she found her husband, and her dead lover at his feet. The next morning she was found stark mad. At the conclusion of the story one of the visitors rises, white with terror, and calling the woman announces that he is her husband. The inn-keeper turns upon him savagely and avenges at one stroke the death of his son and the wreck of the woman’s life.