But that indulgence, too, had nearly ended in disaster; and for the last two years his only use for the alluring drug had been to alleviate the pain of others. Yet the struggle was a hard one; and he wondered sometimes, rather hopelessly, if he would have the strength to continue it to the bitter end.

But to-day, sitting in the pretty room, with the sun pouring in through the casement windows, widely opened to the green garden beyond, Anstice owned that for once life seemed to be in harmony with the beautiful spring world around.

As for Iris Wayne, he told himself presently that he had rarely seen a prettier girl! Although at present his admiration was quite impersonal, it was none the less sincere; and his approval of her grey eyes, set widely apart beneath her crown of sunny hair, of the delicately rounded face, the frank mouth, which disclosed teeth as white as milk, was enhanced by the fact that every line, every tint spoke of flawless health and a mind attuned to the simple, gracious things of life rather than those which are complex and hard to comprehend.

Looking from Iris, bright-eyed and alert, to Chloe, sitting at the head of her table in a white cloth gown which somehow looked elaborate in spite of its utter simplicity, Anstice was struck by the contrast between them. Although the difference in their actual ages was not great, they might well have been at different stages of life. For all her youth, all her grace, her black and white distinction, Chloe was a woman, and no one looking at her would have doubted that to her had come some of the most vital moments of a woman's life. But Iris Wayne was only a girl, an untried warrior in the battle of existence. The glance of her large and radiant eyes was far more akin to that of the child Cherry's brown orbs than to the serious, rather cynical regard which habitually dwelt in Mrs. Carstairs' sapphire-blue eyes; and in every look, every word, was the delicious freshness of a joyous youth. Yet he fancied there was something in the curve of her lips, in the shape of her head, which betokened strength of character as well as lightness of heart. He fancied that her mouth could be tender as well as gay, that her eyes might one day look into the eyes of a man with a promise in their depths of strong and steadfast womanhood.

It chanced presently that Anstice was offered some strawberries, floating in a delicious-looking syrup; and a glance at his hostess betrayed his half-humorous perplexity.

"I know it isn't the right season for strawberries," said Mrs. Carstairs with a smile. "But these are some of our own, bottled by a famous method of Tochatti's. Do try them and give us your opinion."

Anstice complied; and found them excellent.

"They are delicious," he said, "and bring summer very close. Don't you like them?" he asked Cherry, who was demurely nibbling a macaroon.

"No thank you, my dear," replied Cherry gravely. "They give me a pain in my head."

"Oh, do they?" Anstice was nonplussed by this extraordinary assertion, the grounds for which were not borne out by such medical skill as he possessed; but chancing to look across the table at Iris Wayne he found her dimpling deliciously at his perplexity.

"You look puzzled, Dr. Anstice!" She laughed outright. "You see you don't understand how it happens that a pain in the head is connected with strawberries!"

"I don't," he said, "but if you will kindly explain——"

"May I, Cherry?" She looked at the child with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes, and Cherry nodded.

"If you like, my dear. But I think it's rather a silly story."

Notwithstanding this expression of opinion Iris entered forthwith into an explanation.

"You see, Dr. Anstice, Cherry came to stay with me last summer when the strawberries were ripe; and seeing the bed covered with netting—to keep off the birds"—she smiled—"she thought it very hard that the poor little things should not have their share."

"You had heaps and heaps for yourself," came a reproachful voice from the bottom of the table where Cherry sat in state.

"Certainly—until you came on the scene, Cherry Ripe! Well, Dr. Anstice, to cut a long story short, Cherry thought us so selfish and cruel to prevent the poor birds sharing our fruit that she slipped into the kitchen garden one very hot morning, and devoted a good hour to taking up the netting—with the result that the stooping down with the sun beating on her head gave her a touch of sunstroke."

"You forget I had eaten a few strawberries—just to encourage the birdies." Evidently Cherry liked accuracy in any statement, even when it militated against herself.

"Well, whether it was the sun or the strawberries, the fact remains Cherry was in bed for three days, and since then strawberries are tabu. Isn't it so, Mrs. Carstairs?"

"Yes, Iris." Chloe's voice was more weary than usual, as though the subject did not interest her; and suddenly Anstice remembered that during the previous summer she had been shut away from the beautiful world of sun and strawberries and roses red and white....

A moment later Chloe rose from the table; and Anstice stole a look at his watch as they passed into the hall.

As though she divined his action Chloe turned to him.

"You will spare time for a cup of coffee? We have not lingered over our lunch."

Anstice hesitated, and Cherry again added her entreaties to the invitation.

"Do stay a little longer, my dear. Iris will have to go in a minute, but I want her to sing me a song first."

"Do you sing, Miss Wayne?" Looking at her firm round throat and deep chest he thought it possible she sang well.

"Yes." She shook her head at Cherry. "But how can I sing after meringues and strawberries, you bad child?"

"You always say that," returned Cherry placidly. "And then you sing most bee-autifully!"

Iris coloured at this obviously genuine compliment and Anstice laughed outright.

"After that testimonial, Miss Wayne, I hope you don't expect me to run away without hearing you!" He turned to his hostess. "I will stay for a cup of coffee with pleasure, Mrs. Carstairs, and you will persuade Miss Wayne to sing, won't you?"

"Certainly." They were in the cool, hyacinth-scented drawing-room by now, and Chloe drew the girl towards the grand piano which stood by one of the big latticed windows. "Sing to us at once, Iris, before you have your coffee. Will you?"

"Of course I will." She seated herself as she spoke. "What shall it be? Cherry, you know all my songs. What do you want to-day?"

After due consideration Cherry gave her verdict for "the song about the lady in the wood;" and although both Mrs. Carstairs and Iris rallied her on the mournfulness of her choice, Cherry stuck to her guns; and to judge from the rapt expression in her big brown eyes as the singer prophesied the lonely and tragic fate of poor unhappy Melisande, the idea of that fate proved exquisitely soothing to the youthful listener.

Anstice's supposition had been correct. Iris Wayne could sing well. Her voice, a clear mezzo-soprano, had been excellently trained, and in its purity and flexibility gave promise of something exceptional when it should have attained its full maturity. She accompanied herself perfectly, in nowise hampered by the lack of any music; and when she had brought the song to a close, Anstice was sincere in his request for another.

"I've just got some new songs," said Iris, twisting round on the stool to face her hostess. "A book of Indian love-lyrics. Shall I sing you one of those?"

And without waiting for an answer she turned back and began to play an accompaniment which subtly suggested the atmosphere of the East, accentuated by the sound of the bells of some wayside Temple pealing through the dusty, sun-baked land.

"The Temple bells are ringing——"

With the first line of the song Anstice was back in the hideous past, back in the fatal Temple which had proved the antechamber to the halls of Death ... he heard again the chatter of native voices, smelt the odd, indescribable perfume of the East, felt the dread, the impotent horror of that bygone adventure in the ruined Temple of Alostan....

The drawing-room in which he sat, bright with chintz, sweet with the fragrance of hyacinths, faded away; and he saw again the dimly lighted hut in which he and Hilda Ryder had spent that last dreadful night. He heard her voice imploring him to kill her before the men should rush in upon them, saw the anguish in her eyes as she understood that no help was forthcoming from the world without; and he knew again the great and unavailing remorse which had filled his soul when he realized that Hilda Ryder had died too soon....

When the song ended he rose abruptly, and Chloe was startled by the change in his manner.

"I must really say good-bye, Mrs. Carstairs." He had not touched his coffee. "Many thanks for your hospitality." He shook hands with her and turned to Iris with something of an effort. "And many thanks for your songs, Miss Wayne." He tried to smile as they exchanged a handshake, but the attempt was a failure.

"I'll come to the steps with you, my dear," volunteered Cherry politely, and without further leave-taking Anstice went out into the hall, seized his hat, and stumbled towards the door, half-blinded by the pain of that terribly acute inward vision.

He took leave of Cherry with a hasty courtesy which would have hurt some children, but was not displeasing to the stately Cherry; and three minutes later he was driving down the avenue at a furious pace, in a vain endeavour to outstrip the phantoms which a girl's careless song had evoked from their place in the background of his thoughts.

* * * * *

After his abrupt departure Iris turned impulsively to her hostess.

"Mrs. Carstairs"—her voice was disturbed—"what was wrong with Dr. Anstice just now? Did my singing displease him? He got up and went so—so unexpectedly."

For a moment Chloe said nothing. Then:

"Don't you think you are rather too imaginative, Iris? Probably Dr. Anstice remembered some urgent case, and thought he ought to go at once."

"No. I don't think that was it." Iris sank down on to the cushioned window-seat and gazed thoughtfully ahead. "I think——I wonder if that last song could have any associations for him? Has he been in India?"

"I don't know." Chloe smiled faintly. "You must ask him, Iris. I suppose your father would send for him if he were ill, wouldn't he, now that Dr. Meade is really gone?"

"I suppose so." Iris spoke rather dreamily. "At first I thought he was quite old—at least forty," said the schoolgirl. "And then, when he talked to Cherry I was not really sure. I guessed he might be worried about professional things and look older than he was. And now——"

She broke off, and for a moment Chloe Carstairs made no rejoinder, though her blue, almond-shaped eyes held a slightly quizzical expression.

"And now"—she said at length—"what is your opinion now?"

"Now"—Iris spoke very slowly, and in her eyes was something of the womanly tenderness and strength whose possibility Anstice had divined—"I think he has the very saddest face I have ever seen in my life."



CHAPTER IV

Anstice was destined to renew his acquaintance with Iris Wayne sooner than he had anticipated.

On the Sunday afternoon following the little luncheon party at Cherry Orchard, he was tramping, pipe in mouth, over the golf-links when he saw her ahead of him, in company with an elderly gentleman whom he guessed must be her father.

She had just holed her ball by a deft stroke, and as he approached Anstice heard her utter an exultant exclamation.

"Very good, my dear." Her companion patted her arm. "A little more care and you will make quite a fair player."

"Fair player indeed!" Iris tossed her curly head disdainfully. "I'd have you know I can beat you anyway, Daddy!"

As she spoke she recognized the approaching figure and her frank smile flashed out.

"Dr. Anstice—are you playing too?"

"No, Miss Wayne." He advanced and shook hands. "I'm taking my Sunday afternoon tramp. It's the only chance I get of walking in the week."

"Daddy, this is Dr. Anstice." Iris turned to the elderly man. "My father," she explained casually to Anstice, and Sir Richard Wayne held out his hand with a smile.

"You're not a golfer, Dr. Anstice?" Sir Richard was keen on the game.

"No, sir. I used to be a footballer in my hospital days, but"—for a second he hesitated—"I have had no time lately for any kind of game——"

"Well, golf's a grand game for an old buffer like me"—Sir Richard was a hale and well-set-up man who could afford to make such speeches—"but I daresay you younger men like something a bit more strenuous. My daughter here only plays with me now and then as a concession—she prefers tennis, or flying about on that precious motor-cycle of hers."

"Well, judging from what I have seen of Miss Wayne's riding I should say she is a very expert motor-cyclist," said Anstice; and Sir Richard nodded.

"Oh, she rides all right," he owned, "and she bothered me to such an extent that I simply had to give in to her. But it wasn't until she had been 'run in' for exceeding the speed limit in one of my cars and I'd had to sentence her from the Bench in my magisterial capacity that I did give in and buy her a Douglas."

"He fined me twenty shillings and costs!" Iris spoke with mock indignation. "How's that for meanness to your only daughter?"

"And paid the fine out of my own pocket—don't forget that!" Sir Richard chuckled. "Well, Dr. Anstice, if you're not in a hurry, walk round with us, will you? You aren't busy on a Sunday afternoon, I suppose?"

"Well, not very." In spite of himself Anstice felt a strange reluctance to part from his new friends. "I was going for a walk, as you see, and if I may come with you——"

So it fell out that for the first Sunday since he had arrived in Littlefield Anstice's walk was no solitary stroll, companioned only by his own moody or rebellious thoughts, but a pleasant interlude in a life which in spite of incessant and often engrossing work, was on the whole a joyless one.

This afternoon Iris Wayne looked little more than a schoolgirl in her short skirt and brightly coloured jersey, a cap pulled well down over her curls, which nevertheless rioted over her forehead in entrancing confusion. It was very evident that she and her father were on the best of terms; and if, as seemed probable, Sir Richard was proud of his pretty daughter, it was no less certain that she, on her side, thought her father the most wonderful of men.

The trio chatted pleasantly as they crossed the sunny golf links, and Sir Richard told himself that his impressions of this man, gathered from hasty visions of him about the village, or from the chatter of the countryside, impressions which had labelled him as a morose, sullen kind of fellow, had certainly been fallacious.

Reserved he might be; but although his manner was quiet and his smile a trifle sad, there was nothing morose about him to-day; and if his conversation was not particularly brilliant Sir Richard thought none the worse of him for that.

So pleased, indeed, was he with his new acquaintance that when they reached the Club House on the return journey he pressed the young man to accompany them home for a cup of tea.

"I'm sure your patients must cease from troubling on a Sunday afternoon at any rate," he said genially, "and you haven't anyone waiting for you at home, have you?"

With a rather melancholy smile Anstice admitted that there was no one waiting for him at home; and since Iris seconded her father's invitation with a kind little entreaty on her own account, he accepted their joint hospitality without further demur.

Greengates, the home of the Waynes, was a stately old house, more dignified, though perhaps less charming, than the fascinating Cherry Orchard; but its very dignity gave charm; and it formed a by no means incongruous background for this youngest and prettiest of its daughters. For all her youth and high spirits, Iris seemed to fit into the place as one born to it; and when she tossed aside her cap and sat down behind the massive silver tea-tray, her gold-brown curls shone against the oak panelling of the walls as the wild daffodils gleam golden against the massive brown trunks of the trees in whose shade they grow.

Lady Wayne had been dead for many years; and although Anstice gathered, from casual conversation between father and daughter, that a certain Aunt Laura made her home with them as a rule, it appeared that she was at present travelling in Switzerland, leaving Iris mistress of Greengates in her absence.

"I confess Iris and I rather enjoy a week or two to ourselves!" Sir Richard's eyes twinkled. "My sister is a thoroughly good sort, but she loves to manage people; and Iris and I are both of us constitutionally averse to being managed!"

"I manage Daddy without him knowing it," said Iris loftily; and Anstice could not refrain from an impulse to tease her a little.

"That is very clever of you, Miss Wayne," he said gravely, "and I'm sure your management must be most tactful. But—if you'll excuse me suggesting it—wouldn't it be cleverer still of you if you refrained from hinting as much to your father?"

"You mean the really clever women never let the men know they're doing it?" Her grey eyes laughed into his. "You are quite right, of course—but then I don't pretend to be clever. I don't think clever people—clever women, anyway—are ever happy."

"Don't you?" Somehow Anstice felt extraordinarily interested in the views of this very youthful woman. "May I be allowed to know what has driven you to that conclusion?"

"Oh, it's not exactly my own." Iris' eyes were honest as well as gay. "It was something Mrs. Carstairs said to me one day. She is clever, you know—but her life has been made very unhappy."

Anstice, who had already wondered how much of Chloe Carstairs' history was known to the Waynes, glanced involuntarily at Sir Richard as Iris spoke the last words; and in the elder man's eyes he thought he saw a hint of trouble.

"I should judge Mrs. Carstairs to be a well-read woman," he said, endeavouring to change the subject while ostensibly pursuing it. "She has a good many books about her, though of course nothing like your collection here."

He glanced at the walls as he spoke, and Sir Richard took up the new topic easily.

"I don't know whether you are a reader, Dr. Anstice," he said, "but if so, and you're short of reading matter, don't hesitate to borrow some of our books. We've all sorts, eh, Iris?"

"Thanks very much. I'm not a great reader—haven't time; but your books look rather alluring," said Anstice, with a smile.

"We'll have a look round after tea," returned his host. "In the meantime pass your cup—this weather makes one thirsty."

After tea he rose and invited the younger man to scrutinize the shelves. Somewhat to his surprise Anstice found that the Greengates collection of books was a most comprehensive one, whole sections being devoted to science, biography, travel and so on; and he was fortunate enough to discover two recent biological works, which, owing to their somewhat prohibitive price, he had hitherto been unable to obtain.

"Like to borrow those tomes?" Sir Richard had noted the expression in his guest's face as he handled the volumes. "Well, take them, and anything else you like. No, I confess I don't care much about books myself. Most of these were my father's choice—he was a bit of a student in his later years, and my sister likes to keep up with the times and lets the booksellers send down books as they used to do. But you're welcome to any of 'em, I assure you."

He led his guest round the room, pointing out one or two favourites of his own; and while they were thus engaged, Iris, who had been feeding three lively Airedales with scraps of cake, came up to Anstice with outstretched hand.

"Will you excuse me, Dr. Anstice? I must go and get ready for church—we have service early here, you know."

Immediately Anstice attempted to take his own departure, fearing he had outstayed his welcome; but Sir Richard positively refused to let him go.

"No, no, don't hurry away. Stay and keep me company for a little while—my man can easily run you over in the car presently."

So it came about that after watching Iris' departure the two men turned back into the house, where Sir Richard led his visitor to his own cosy smoking-room and handed him a cigar.

"Light up," he said genially, "and try that chair. Dr. Anstice, now that my little girl has left us, I want to say something to you—to ask you a question, in fact."

Rather taken aback, Anstice expressed his willingness to answer any questions his host thought fit to ask; and Sir Richard plunged at once into the heart of the matter.

"I understand from Iris that you have been attending the lady living at Cherry Orchard. Oh!"—as Anstice's eyebrows rose—"I'm not asking you to violate professional secrecy. I only wished to be sure that you knew the true position of Mrs. Carstairs in this neighbourhood."

A moment's reflection showed Anstice that this man would hardly be likely to permit his young daughter to visit Cherry Orchard unless his opinion of Mrs. Carstairs were favourable; and his voice was non-committal as he answered.

"I have heard Mrs. Carstairs' story from her own lips, Sir Richard. She was good enough to relate it to me at an early stage of our acquaintance," he said; and this time it was the other man's eyebrows which betokened surprise.

"Indeed! I didn't expect that, or I would not have spoken. I thought you had probably heard a garbled account of the whole horrible affair from some of the Pharisees down here; and since I and my daughter are honoured by Mrs. Carstairs' friendship I wanted to be sure you didn't allow the weight of local opinion to prejudice you in any way."

"It's awfully good of you." For once Anstice spoke spontaneously, as he might have spoken before that fatal day which had changed him into another and a less impulsive person. "I may take it, then, that you and Miss Wayne believe in Mrs. Carstairs?"

"I believe in her as I'd believe in my own girl," returned Sir Richard emphatically. "Mind you, Chloe Carstairs isn't perfect—we none of us are. She has her faults—now. She's cynical and cold, a bit of a poseuse—that marble manner of hers is artificial, I verily believe—but I'm prepared to swear she had nothing to do with those vile letters."

"You have known her long?"

"Since she was a child. Her father was one of my best friends, and I knew Chloe when she was a tiny baby girl all tied up with blue ribbons. Carstairs met her first at my people's place in Surrey, and I was really pleased when he married the girl and brought her here."

"They lived here after their marriage?"

"Yes, for a short time only. Then they were off to India, and there they remained till her child was born, and she was faced with the old problem of the woman who marries a soldier."

"You mean—wife versus mother?"

"Yes. Upon my soul, Anstice, I can't understand how a woman ever decides between the two claims. To hand over her baby to relations, or even strangers, must be like tearing the heart out of her bosom, and yet a woman wants her husband too—wants him especially when she is young—as Chloe was."

"Mrs. Carstairs decided for her child?"

"Yes. They kept her in India as long as they dared—longer than some people thought prudent—and then Chloe brought her home to the old place. Iris was at school then, but Chloe used to come in to see my sister and me frequently, and we congratulated ourselves that we'd got such a pleasant neighbour. You know Cherry Orchard is really the nearest house as the crow flies."

"I suppose it is; though I hadn't realized it. And then—the crash came?"

"Yes. When first those horrible letters began to fly about the parish they were put down as the work of some spiteful servant, dismissed for dishonesty, perhaps. But little by little Mrs. Carstairs' name began to be whispered in connection with them—no one knew how the rumour started, though I have always held the belief that the Vicar's wife herself was the first to suggest it."

"But Mrs. Carstairs and the woman were friends?"

"They had been—and in the first burst of friendship the foolish woman had poured out all her silly, sordid secrets to Chloe Carstairs, and then, possibly, repented having done so. They fell out, you see, and I suppose Mrs. Ogden, being a woman of a small and petty character herself, was only too ready to suspect her former friend. She swore, you know, that no one but Chloe could have known some of the details which were mentioned in the letters. I can't tell you how vile the whole thing was—and it was quite evidently the intention of the anonymous writer to drive Mrs. Ogden out of the parish by those libellous documents."

"But the matter was thoroughly sifted? And there could be no evidence against Mrs. Carstairs?"

"Well, when things had gone on for some time in a desultory kind of fashion—a letter here, another there, and then an interval of a few weeks—there came a perfect avalanche of the things, and the Vicar, although he had really wished to hush the matter up, was advised to take steps to find out the culprit."

"Even then I don't see how Mrs. Carstairs could be suspected——"

"Well, in a matter of this kind, when once a woman's name has been mentioned, it is very hard for her to clear herself. At first, guided, I confess, by me, she refused to take any notice of the affair. In the end, of course, she had to come forward to clear herself of a specific charge."

"But what weight had the evidence against her?"

"Well, certain curious things happened. It was found that the letters were all written on a particular kind of paper affected by Mrs. Carstairs for scribbling unimportant notes—household orders and so on—not by any means an uncommon paper, but still she was the only person in the village who bought it regularly. Then the handwriting, though it was scratchy and common-looking, did bear, in some words, a faint, very faint resemblance to hers; and once, when Chloe was away on a visit to Brighton, a letter came to the owner of Carr Hall, in the valley yonder, which had been posted at Hove. Then, as she may have told you, a trap was laid for her by some of the damned authorities"—he spoke heatedly—"she was supplied with marked paper; and sure enough the next letter which arrived was written on one of those identical sheets."

"But the servants—her servants would have had access to her paper?"

"Quite so; and that point was made much of by the defence. But when all the household was examined, it didn't seem a feasible theory that any of them was to blame."

"How many servants were there in the house?" Unconsciously Anstice's manner was that of a doctor interrogating a patient, and Sir Richard noted the fact with a quickly suppressed flicker of amusement.

"Four only. During Major Carstairs' absence Mrs. Carstairs wished to live quietly; and her staff consisted of a cook—a young Frenchman whose life Major Carstairs had once saved in a drunken brawl in Soho——"

"A Frenchman, eh?" Anstice habitually distrusted foreigners. "Mightn't he have been the guilty person?"

"He only knew enough English to discuss the menu with his mistress," answered Sir Richard. "Chloe used to make us laugh by relating his mistakes; and even if he had wished to write the letters he could not possibly have done it. Besides, he returned to France for his military training in the very middle of all this, so he really can't be suspected."

"Well." In fairness Anstice could not condemn the Frenchman. "Who else was in the house?"

"A middle-aged housemaid who had lived with the Carstairs' all her life, and whose character was quite above suspicion. As a matter of course her writing was compared with that of the letters and was proved to have none of the characteristics of the anonymous handwriting. For another thing her sight was bad, and she couldn't write straight to save her life."

"I see. And what of the other two?"

"One was a pretty young girl who acted as maid to Mrs. Carstairs herself; and I admit at first it seemed that she was the most likely person to have been mixed up in the affair; for she was a flighty minx who wasn't too particular about her behaviour, and was generally engaged to two or three young men at once."

"Well?" From Sir Richard's manner Anstice gathered that there was no case against the pretty young minx; and the next words confirmed his supposition.

"Sad to say the poor girl caught a chill and died of pneumonia after only five days' illness, during which time the letter-writer was particularly active; and as the communications continued after her death, she must be counted out."

"Well," said Anstice, "that accounts for three of them. What about the fourth?"

"The fourth was an old servant of the other side of the family—Chloe's family—the woman they call Tochatti, who lives there still. She's half Italian, though she's lived the greater part of her life in England. Chloe's mother picked her up on her honeymoon, and she was Chloe's nurse. She has been a most devoted servant all the time, and I would almost as soon suspect Chloe herself as suspect the poor woman of working any harm to her adored young mistress."

Remembering the woman's solicitude on the occasion of his first visit to Cherry Orchard, Anstice was compelled to admit it was unlikely she was the culprit; and his impression was deepened by Sir Richard's next speech.

"As a matter of fact, it came out that the poor old thing couldn't even write her name. The other woman, Janet, was what she called a 'poor scollard', but Tochatti went one better, for she could neither write nor read. It appeared they had often teased her about it, and she had frequently flown into a rage when the other servants poked fun at her; but she certainly scored in the end!"

"Well, that disposes of the household," said Anstice rather regretfully. "But what about outdoor workers—gardeners and so forth?"

"There was only one gardener—and a boy—and neither could possibly have had access to Chloe's writing-table; added to which they both left Cherry Orchard during the critical time and took situations in different parts of the county. So they too had to be counted out."

"All this came out in court?"

"Yes. You see, had the matter rested between the party libelled and the libeller—if there is such a term—an action in the Civil Courts to recover damages would have met the case. But owing to the fact that practically everyone in the neighbourhood was victimized, and warnings, almost amounting to threats, issued to the Ogden woman's friends to have nothing more to do with her, the public were, so to speak, directly affected; and it was in the interests of the public that, finally, criminal proceedings were instituted."

"And in the end an intelligent jury brought in a verdict of guilty?"

"Yes. The case came on at Ripstone, five miles away, and of course excited no end of interest locally. To give them their due, the jury were very reluctant to bring in that verdict—but I assure you"—he spoke weightily—"when I heard the other side marshalling their facts, each one making the case look still blacker and more damning, I began to be afraid. Yes, I confess it, I began to feel very much afraid."

"And they brought her in guilty?"

"Yes, and the Judge sentenced her. I don't like to accuse one of His Majesty's judges of allowing his judgment to be prejudiced by personal feeling," said Sir Richard slowly; "but it has always seemed to me that Chloe's manner—her peculiarly detached, indifferent manner, as though the case did not interest her vitally—was in some subtle fashion an affront to the man. His remarks to her seemed to me unnecessarily severe, and he certainly did not err on the side of leniency."

"I should think not! Twelve months—why, it's an Eternity!"

"What must it have seemed to that poor girl!" Sir Richard spoke pitifully. "I used to fancy she would die in prison—I could not imagine how she could support the life in there, in those degrading surroundings. You know, not only had she been lapped in luxury, as they say, all her life, but, more important still, she had been used to boundless love and affection from all around her."

"You find her much altered?"

"Yes. I can't say exactly in what the alteration consists," returned Sir Richard thoughtfully. "It's not merely a surface thing—the change goes deeper than that. I called her posee just now. Well, I don't know if that's the right word. Sometimes I think that frozen manner of hers isn't a pose after all, it's natural to her nowadays. She seems to be literally turned to stone by all she's gone through. Where she used to be all sympathy, all ardour, all life, now she's cold, frigid, passionless. The girl's barely twenty-five, but upon my soul she might be a woman of fifty for all the youth there is about her—except in her looks, and there I believe she's handsomer than ever!"

Anstice's cigar was smoked out; but there was one question he must ask before he took his leave.

"And her husband—Major Carstairs? He—I gather he was inclined to agree with the verdict?"

Sir Richard hesitated, and when he spoke there was a note of pain in his voice.

"I am sorry to say Carstairs could not bring himself to believe in his wife's innocence. He was in India at the time, you know, and only got home—on special leave—when the case was coming on. Heaven knows on what grounds he bases his doubts of her. One would have thought it impossible for a man to live with a woman like Chloe and not know her incapable of the deed. But human nature is a strange thing——" He broke off.

"I understand they do not contemplate keeping house together for the future?" Anstice hoped he was not appearing unduly curious, but Sir Richard's manner invited interest.

"No—though mind you, Carstairs has not left his wife because she was unfortunate enough to be convicted and sent to prison. He's not that sort. If he could have believed her innocent he would have stuck to her through thick and thin. As it is he gives her the house, a large allowance, which permits motor-cars and things of that kind, and since he is known to be in India a good many people don't know they are really living apart in a double sense."

"Yet he can't believe in her?"

"No—and that's why he will not live with her. In his own rather peculiar way he has a remarkably high code of honour, and since he genuinely believes her to be guilty it would doubtless be quite impossible for him to live with her again."

"I am rather surprised—seeing she must know his opinion of her—that she condescends to live in his house and take his money," said Anstice, voicing a question which had caused him a very real and acute wonder.

"I'm glad you have raised that point," said Sir Richard quickly. "She does it for the sake of the child, so that Cherry may have all the advantages of wealth. Chloe herself has nothing and Carstairs is a rich man; so it is an eminently proper arrangement, and in my opinion Chloe behaved like a sensible woman in agreeing to it."

He threw away his cigar, which had gone out as he talked.

"No—what I wonder at is that Chloe should deliberately choose to come back here where the whole story is known. It's not bravado, of that I'm certain, but it beats me altogether how she can do it, for as you know women can be uncommonly cruel sometimes, and these creatures here aren't by any means charitably disposed towards her."

"You allow Miss Wayne to visit her?"

"Yes—and I welcome her to my house on the rare occasions she honours me by entering it," said Sir Richard with evident sincerity; and Anstice felt oddly gratified by the other man's speech.

A clock striking seven brought him to his feet in genuine dismay.

"Seven o'clock! I'd no idea it was so late! Pray excuse me inflicting myself on you all this time."

"Must you go?" Sir Richard rose too, and stood regarding the tall, loosely built figure with something like admiration. "Well, you're a busy man, I know; and if you really must go I'll not detain you. But you'll come in again, won't you? Come to dinner—Iris shall send you a note—and drop in for a smoke any evening you're at liberty."

The invitation so heartily given was accepted with a pleasure to which Anstice had long been a stranger; and then he said good-bye to his kind host and left Greengates feeling that he had found two unexpectedly congenial friends in Iris Wayne and her father.

He had been deeply, genuinely interested in Sir Richard's story, that unhappy story in which Chloe Carstairs figured so tragically; yet as he made his way homewards between the blossoming hedgerows his mind dwelt upon another woman, a younger, happier woman than the pale mistress of Cherry Orchard. And the face which floated before his eyes in the starlit spring dusk was the laughing, grey-eyed face of Iris Wayne.



CHAPTER V

As the weeks passed Anstice's acquaintance with the Waynes ripened into something which he found strangely pleasant.

Although he had long ago decided that for him the simple human things of life, friendship, social intercourse with the world of men and women, were, since that bygone Indian morning, forbidden, even his acquired misanthropy was not proof against the kindly advances made to him by Sir Richard and his daughter.

Busy as he was, he still found time to accept some of their invitations to Greengates, and he and Sir Richard enjoyed a quiet chat over their cigars now and again when by chance he had an evening to himself.

On their side the Waynes found him, each in his and her own degree, an agreeable companion. Sir Richard approved of his quiet and reserved manner, and was not inclined to quarrel with his occasional fits of moodiness—for there were times when the ghosts which haunted him refused to be exorcised, and Anstice felt himself unfit, by reason of the handicap which Fate had imposed upon him, to mingle with the happy, the careless, the innocent ones of the earth.

To Sir Richard, kind-hearted, uncritical, undiscerning, such fits of silence, even of gloom, were natural enough in a man whose life was spent largely in the service of the sick and suffering among humanity. He was probably worried over some difficult case, Sir Richard concluded, when he found the younger man's conversation halting, his manner absent, or, on rare occasions, morose; and it must be noted that as a rule Anstice had too much respect for his friends to inflict these moods upon them. As for Iris, quicker of discernment than her father, of a more analytical turn of mind, she guessed that the changing moods which characterized her new acquaintance were not induced by any external or professional worries, but were the marks of a trouble far more serious, far more vital to the man himself. Of the nature of this trouble Iris had naturally no very clear idea, though now and again she considered the probability of him having been what she called, rather school-girlishly, crossed in love. But though her phraseology might be childish there was something purely womanly in the compassion with which she thought of Anstice; and on one occasion when a fit of melancholy had overcome him unexpectedly in her presence, he was startled, not to say dismayed, to notice something of this half-tender, half-impersonal pity in the soft, brooding glance of her eyes as they rested on him for a moment.

It was not with the Waynes alone that he grew more intimate as the days went by. A short time after his introduction to Greengates Anstice received a summons to Cherry Orchard, and on repairing thither found that his patient on this occasion was Cherry Carstairs. With all her demure dignity Cherry was at times possessed of a very spirit of perversity; and being, although of such tender years, absolutely devoid of fear, she had tried conclusions in secret with a shaggy pony in a field close by her home, with the result that, owing to the pony's stubborn refusal to allow her to climb upon his back, Cherry received a kick, more in sorrow than in anger, which snapped the bone in her tiny forearm, and sent her stumbling home, very pale and shaky, her dignity sadly in abeyance, to seek her mother.

Anstice, on arrival, soon had the small arm set and comfortably bandaged; and once safely in bed, although more upset than she wished anyone to imagine, Cherry regained her usual half-affectionate half-patronizing manner, and insisted upon Anstice sitting down beside her "for at least five minutes, my dear!"

With a smile, Anstice sat down as requested; and Cherry instantly began to question him on the subject of Greengates.

"Isn't it a fassynating house, my dear?" Cherry never employed a short word when she thought a long one fairly appropriate. "Have you seen Iris' bedroom?—all done in white and purple and green—and irises everywhere—on the walls and the curtains—just like a gorjus purple iris what grows in the garden?"

"No, I've not seen Miss Wayne's bedroom," owned Anstice rather hastily. "But it couldn't be prettier than this—why, those bunches of cherries on the wall are so life-like that I wonder the birds don't come in to make a meal of them!"

"Do you like them?" Cherry was openly gratified by his approval. "But I wish you could see Iris' room. She always takes me there to wash my hands and face, and the basin is all over irises too."

"Fassynating" as these details of Miss Wayne's domestic arrangements might be, Anstice judged it safer to switch his small patient on to another topic; and in an animated discussion as to the proper age at which a young lady might begin to ride a motor-bicycle—Cherry inclining to seven, Anstice to seventeen years—the promised five minutes flew swiftly away.

"You'll come again, my dear?" Cherry's anxiety to ensure his attendance was flattering, and he laughed and assured her he would visit her every day if she desired it.

As a matter of fact he did visit her with some regularity; for she managed, with a perversity known only to imps of a like nature, to catch a severe chill which puzzled her attendants, none of them knowing of a certain feverishly delightful ten minutes spent in hanging out of the window holding an interesting conversation with the gardener's boy below on the subject of broken bones. In any case, Anstice found it necessary to call at Cherry Orchard on several consecutive days; and during the child's illness and subsequent convalescence he was perforce obliged to come into contact with Mrs. Carstairs herself.

As a physiological study Chloe interested him strongly. Although she appeared genuinely fond of her little daughter and waited on her night and day with a solicitude which never varied, there was nothing in her manner to denote passionate affection, nor did the child appear to desire it. Even to Cherry her voice, rich and deep as it was, never softened; and she rarely used an endearing term. Yet Cherry appeared to be quite satisfied; and Anstice came to the conclusion that the child's fine instinct was able to pierce behind this apparent coldness to the warm human love which doubtless lay beneath.

One fact about Mrs. Carstairs he was not slow in discovering. With the exception of Iris Wayne and her father, Chloe appeared to be absolutely devoid of friends, even of casual acquaintances. The Littlefield people, who had been first surprised, then outraged, by her reappearance among them, had long since decided that for them Cherry Orchard was tabu; and although the Vicar, Mr. Carey, successor to the man whose wife had raised the storm in which Chloe Carstairs' barque had come to shipwreck, had called upon her, and endeavoured, in his gentle, courtly fashion, to make her welcome, his parishioners had no intention of following his example.

That Mrs. Carstairs felt her isolation in a social sense Anstice did not believe; but that she must feel very lonely at times, find the days very long and empty, he felt pretty well assured. She was not an accomplished woman in the usual sense of the word. He never found her playing the piano, or painting water-colour pictures as did so many of the women ha visited. She did not appear to care for needlework, and in spite of the books scattered about the house, he rarely saw her reading; yet all the while he had a feeling that had she desired to shine in any or all of the arts peculiar to women she would have no difficulty in doing so.

That she ordered her household excellently he knew from the glimpses he had obtained of her domestic life; but there again she was assisted by a staff of superior servants who all, from her personal attendant, the devoted Tochatti, down to the boy who cleaned the knives, worshipped their mistress with a wholehearted affection which held about it a touch of something almost resembling fanaticism.

One day Anstice did find her with a book in her hand; and on venturing to inquire into its contents was informed it was a well-known Treatise on Chess.

"Do you play?" he asked, rather astonished, for in common with many men he imagined chess to be almost purely a masculine pastime.

"Yes—at least I used to play once," she admitted slowly. "I can't very well indulge in a game nowadays. Even the grownup Cherry declines to play, though I hope in time I may incite her to learn!"

"I used to play—indifferently—once," Anstice said meditatively; and Chloe looked at him with a faint smile.

"Did you? Some day when you are not too busy will you drop in to tea and play a game with me?"

"I'd like to immensely." His tone was sincere, and Chloe's manner warmed ever so little.

"Can you stay now?" The hour was just on five; and Cherry, who had that day been promoted to tea downstairs, seconded the invitation as usual from her nest on the big Chesterfield.

"Do stay, my dear, and I'll help you to move all the funny little men and the castles!"

Anstice could not refuse this double invitation; and after a hasty cup of tea he and his hostess sat down to the board and set out the ancient ivory chessmen which were so well suited to the pretty, old-fashioned room in which the players sat.

To Anstice's quite unjustifiable surprise Chloe Carstairs played an admirable game. Her moves were clearly reasoned out, and she displayed a quickness of thought, a brilliance of man[oe]uvre, which soon convinced Anstice he was outplayed.

At the end of fifteen minutes Chloe had vanquished him completely; and while most of his men were reposing in the carved box at her elbow, the ranks of her army were scarcely thinned.

"I give in, Mrs. Carstairs!" He laughed and rose. "You won't think me unsporting if I run away now? I'm beat hollow, and I know it, but if you will condescend to play with me another day——"

"I shall look forward to another game," she said serenely; and Anstice departed, feeling he had been permitted to obtain another sidelight on her somewhat complex character.

Two days later he made another and rather disconcerting discovery, which set him wondering afresh as to the real nature of the woman who, like himself, had been the victim of a strangely vindictive fate.

The day was Sunday, and Cherry had been permitted the indulgence of breakfast in bed; so that Anstice interviewed his young patient in her own pink-and-white nest, where, attended by the faithful Tochatti, she gave herself innumerable airs and graces, but finally allowed him to examine her small arm, which was now practically healed.

"Mrs. Carstairs not up yet?" It was ten o'clock—but there was no sign of Cherry's mother.

"Yes, sir." Tochatti spoke slowly, her foreign accent more strongly marked than usual. "My mistress has a slight headache and is in her own room. She would like to see you before you go."

Accordingly, after a prolonged parting from Cherry, who shamelessly importuned him to neglect his other and less important patients, Anstice accompanied Tochatti to Mrs. Carstairs' sitting-room where its owner presumably awaited him.

The room itself was in its way as uncommon as its occupant, being furnished entirely in black and white. The walls were white, the carpet black. The chairs and couches were upholstered in black-and-white chintz, with a profusion of cushions of both hues, and the pictures on the white walls were etchings in black oak frames. On the mantelpiece was a collection of carved ivory toys of all kinds, with here and there an ebony elephant from Ceylon or Assam. The paint on doors and windows was black, yet in spite of the sombreness of the general scheme there was nothing depressing, nothing sinister in the finished effect.

Possibly because Chloe Carstairs was an artist—or a wise woman who knew the value of relief—one note of colour was struck in the presence of a huge china bowl filled with tulips of every conceivable shade of flame and orange and yellow and red; but with that exception black and white predominated, and when Chloe Carstairs rose from her low chair near the window and advanced towards him, she, too, carried out the subtle suggestion of the whole room.

Dressed in white, her silky black hair and blue eyes the only bits of colour about her, she looked paler than usual, and Anstice jumped to the conclusion she had sent for him to prescribe for her.

"Good morning, Dr. Anstice." Anstice, who hated shaking hands with most people, always liked her firm, cool handshake. "How is Cherry? You find her better?"

"Yes, she is really quite herself again, and her arm has healed most satisfactorily." He stood in front of her as he spoke, and studied her face carefully. "But you don't look very fit, Mrs. Carstairs. Can I do anything for you now that your little daughter has finished with me?"

She looked at him with a smile which was more melancholy than usual.

"I think not," she said slowly. "You see, I am not ill, only a little tired—tired with remembering days that are gone."

"Isn't that rather a fatal thing to do?" His own bitter memories gave him the clue to her state of mind. "No good ever comes of remembering sad things. I think the perfect memory would be one which would only retain the happiness of life. You know the old motto found on many sundials: 'I only record sunny hours.'"

"I don't agree with you," she said quietly. "It's the shadows which give value to the high lights, isn't it? And sometimes to remember dreadful things is a happiness in itself, knowing they are gone for ever. I can quite well bear to remember that horrible prison"—as always when speaking of it, her lips whitened—"because no power on earth can ever put me back there again."

"I don't think it can do you any good to dwell on such memories," he persisted. "If you are wise you will forget them. No wonder your head aches if you dwell on such unpleasant things."

She looked at him more fully, and in her eyes he read something which baffled him.

"You are quite right—and delightfully sane and sensible," she said. "But as a matter of fact, I wasn't really thinking of the prison to-day. You see, this is the anniversary of my wedding day, and my thoughts were not altogether sad ones."

He looked at her, nonplussed for the moment, and suddenly Chloe's face softened.

"Dr. Anstice, forgive me. The fact is, I had a bad night, and am all on edge this morning."

"Why do you sit in here?" asked Anstice abruptly. "It is a lovely morning—the sun is warm and there's no wind. Why not go out into your charming garden? Lie in a low chair and sleep—or read some amusing book. Is this a particularly engrossing one?"

He picked up the volume she had laid down at his entrance, and she watched him with a faint hint of mockery in her blue eyes. His face changed as he read the title.

"De Quincey's Confessions! Mrs. Carstairs, you're not interested in this sort of thing?"

"Why not?" Her manner was ever so slightly antagonistic. "The subject is a fascinating one, isn't it? I confess I've often felt inclined to try opium—morphia or something of the sort, myself."

"Morphia?" His voice startled her by its harshness. "Don't make a joke of it, Mrs. Carstairs. If I thought you really meant that——"

"But I do—or did." She spoke coolly. "I even went so far as to purchase the means of indulging my fancy."

"You did? But—forgive me—why?"

"Don't we all sigh for oblivion now and then?" She put the question calmly, looking him squarely in the face the while. "I have always understood that morphia is one of the roads into Paradise—a Fool's Paradise, no doubt, but we poor wretches can't always choose our heavens."

"Nor our hells!" He still spoke vehemently. "Yes, there are times in all our lives when oblivion, forgetfulness, seems very desirable, very alluring. But let me entreat you, Mrs. Carstairs, not to seek to enter Paradise by that devil's key!"

Her almond-shaped eyes grew still more narrow as she looked at him.

"I wonder why you speak so impressively," she said slowly. "As a doctor doubtless you are au fait in the subject, yet your vehemence seems to imply——" She paused.

"As a doctor I've seen enough of the havoc the opium fiend plays in the lives of men—and women," he said steadily, "to realize the danger that lies in the insidious habit. I have seen women—women like you"—he had no idea of sparing her—"young, of good position and all the rest of it, who have slid into the deadly thing on the flimsiest of pretexts—and then, too late, have realized they are bound—for life—with fetters which cannot be broken."

"Yet the deadly thing is fascinating, isn't it? Else why do so many fall under its sway?"

"Fascinating?" With an inward shudder Anstice recalled those months after Hilda Ryder's death—those horrible, chaotic months when, in a vain endeavour to stifle thought, to deaden remorse, he had invoked the aid of the poppy, and by so doing had almost precipitated a moral catastrophe which should have been more overwhelming than the first. "For God's sake, Mrs. Carstairs, don't become obsessed by that idea. The morphia habit is one degrading slavery of mind and body, and only the miserable victims know how delusive are its promises, how unsatisfactory its rewards. What can you expect from a cult whose highest reward—the only thing, indeed, it has to offer you, is—oblivion?"

Chloe Carstairs did not reply. Instead, she turned away and moved across the room to a small black escritoire which stood against the white wall. Bending down she opened it, and after pressing a spring, released what appeared to be a secret drawer. From this she lifted out a little packet wrapped in white paper and sealed with red wax, and holding it in her hand she came slowly back to where Anstice stood, made vaguely uncomfortable by her curious, almost secretive manner.

"Dr. Anstice"—she held out the packet—"will you take charge of this for me? It is the key—what you called the devil's key just now—to the Paradise I have never had the courage to enter."

Anstice took the little parcel from her with something of sternness in his face.

"Yes, Mrs. Carstairs. But what, exactly, is this thing?"

"An hypodermic syringe and a supply of morphia," she informed him tranquilly. Then, as he pursed his lips into an involuntary whistle, she went on, with more than a hint of mockery in her manner: "Oh, I came by it quite honestly, I assure you! I didn't steal it from a doctor's surgery—I bought it at a chemist's shop in London."

"You did?"

"Yes, and I made the young man show me how to use it." She smiled rather ironically. "Naturally I was ignorant in the matter, and I didn't want to make a blunder in its use."

"Really? Well, Mrs. Carstairs, this is your property, but I wish I might persuade you to leave it in my keeping for the present."

"You think it would be safer there?" She looked at him as though considering the matter. "Well, I wonder?"

"You wonder—what?" He spoke dryly.

"Whether it is safer with you. Of course, as a doctor you can get plenty of your own——"

"I shan't be tempted to steal yours for my private use," said Anstice a trifle grimly; and the Fates who rule the lives of men probably smiled to themselves over the fatuity of mankind.

"Well, I gave it to you myself, so you may as well keep it," said Chloe indifferently, as though already tired of the subject; and without more ado Anstice slipped the little white packet into his pocket, and took leave of its former owner before she had opportunity to change her mind on the subject.

He could not dismiss the figure of Chloe Carstairs from his thoughts as he went about his day's work. Intuitively he knew that she was a bitterly unhappy woman, that her life, like his own, had been rent in two by a cataclysm of appalling magnitude, such as visits very few human beings, and he told himself that this woman, too, had been down in the depths even as he had been. And no man, no woman, who has once known the blackness of the abyss, that "outer darkness" in which the soul sits apart in a horror of loneliness, can ever view the world again with quite the clear-eyed vision of the normal human being to whom, fortunately for the sanity of the race, such appalling experiences are mercifully unknown.

On a morning a week later Anstice received a note from Mrs. Carstairs.

"DEAR DR. ANSTICE,"

"My brother has unexpectedly written to offer himself for a couple of nights, and I shall be pleased if you will come to dinner this evening at half-past seven to meet him. I have invited Miss Wayne, so please complete our quartette if you can."

"Sincerely,"

"CHLOE CARSTAIRS."

For some moments Anstice sat inwardly debating the question, the note in his hand.

He had no engagement for the evening. The people of Littlefield, puzzled, perhaps a little piqued, by the aloofness of his manner, rarely invited him to their houses in anything but his professional capacity, though they called upon his services in and out of season; and Sir Richard Wayne and Mr. Carey, the gentle, courtly Vicar of the parish, were the only two men with whom he ever enjoyed an hour's quiet chat over a soothing pipe or cigar.

So that there was no reason why he should hesitate to accept Chloe Carstairs' invitation for that particular evening, yet hesitate he did, unaccountably; and when, after fifteen minutes indecision, he suddenly scribbled and dispatched an acceptance, the messenger had barely gone from his presence before he felt an unreasoning impulse to recall the letter.

What lay at the bottom of his strange reluctance to enjoy Chloe's hospitality he had not the faintest notion. He had no special aversion to meeting her brother, nor was he in any way reluctant to improve his acquaintance with Iris Wayne.... Did his heart, indeed, beat just a shade faster at the thought of meeting her? Yet something seemed to whisper that this invitation was disastrous, that it would set in train events which might be overwhelming in their sequence.

He tried, vainly, to banish the faint premonition of evil which had fallen upon him when he realized it was too late to recall his acceptance. Throughout the day it persisted, and when at length he went to his room to dress for the evening, he felt a strong inclination to excuse himself over the telephone on the plea of an urgent call to whose importance he could not turn a deaf ear.

Such an excuse would, he knew, pass muster well enough. A doctor can rarely be depended upon, socially, and when he was dressed he went downstairs with the intention of ringing up Cherry Orchard and regretting his inability to make a fourth at Mrs. Carstairs' dinner-table that night.

Yet at the last moment Fate, or that other Higher Power of which we know too little to speak with any familiarity, intervened to restrain his impulse, and with a muttered imprecation at his own unusual vacillation he turned away from the telephone and went out to his waiting car impatiently.

Arriving at Cherry Orchard, the elderly manservant relieved him of his coat with a deferential smile.

"I think I'm a little late, Hagyard." Anstice glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. "Or perhaps your clock's a bit forward."

"I daresay it is, sir." Hagyard accepted the suggestion with well-trained alacrity. "Miss Wayne has only been here a moment or two."

He threw open the door as he spoke and Anstice entered the drawing-room with a sudden unwelcome return of his premonition strong upon him.

Yet the room, with its shaded lamps, small wood-fire, and latticed windows open to the sweet spring twilight, looked peaceful enough. As usual there were masses of flowers about, tulips, narcissi, anemones; and the atmosphere was fragrant as Anstice went forward to greet his hostess, who stood by one of the casements with her guests beside her.

She came towards him with her usual slow step, which never, for all its deliberation, suggested the languor of ill-health; and as he began to apologize for his late arrival she smiled away his apologies.

"You're not really late, Dr. Anstice, and in any case we should have given you a few minutes' grace."

She stood aside for him to greet Iris, and as he shook hands with the girl Anstice's heart gave a sudden throb of pleasure, which, for the moment, almost succeeded in banishing that uncanny premonition of evil which had come with him to the very gates of Cherry Orchard.

She was very simply dressed in a frock of filmy grey-green chiffon whose colour reminded him of the spiky leaves of a carnation; but he had never seen her look prettier than on that mild spring night; and his eyes unconsciously softened as they dwelt upon her face for one fleeting moment.

Then as Chloe's soft, deep voice, introducing her brother, stole on his ear, he turned to greet the other man; and instantly he realized, too late, the meaning of that presentiment of ill which had haunted him all day; understood why the inner, spiritual part of him had bidden him refuse Chloe Carstairs' invitation to Cherry Orchard that night.

For the man who turned leisurely from the window to greet the new-comer was the man whom he had last seen in a green-walled bedroom in an Indian hotel, the man whom, by a tragic error, he had robbed of the woman he loved, from whom he had parted with a mutual hope that their paths in life might never cross again.

* * * * *

Mrs. Carstairs' brother was the man whom Hilda Ryder had loved, Bruce Cheniston himself.



CHAPTER VI

As a rule the psychological moments of life come and go so quietly that their passing attracts little notice. Quite minor happenings give rise to demonstrations of excitement, of joy, of loudly voiced approbation or disappointment. But the moments which really matter in a life, which mark an epoch or destroy a dream, pass as a rule so quietly that only those whose dreams are shattered, or whose lives have been touched with the glory of the immortal, know that for a brief instant Time has become interchangeable with Eternity; that in the space of sixty fleeting seconds whole cycles of life have been lived through, and a vast and yawning gulf, in thought, in feeling, in spiritual growth or mental outlook, has opened to divide this moment from the one which directly preceded it.

Such a moment was this one in which the two men who were bound together by so tragic a link came face to face in Chloe Carstairs' drawing-room.

Each had been quite sincere in his dread of any future meeting; but whereas Bruce Cheniston had been the victim of as cruel a circumstance as ever deprived lover of his beloved, Anstice was the more to be pitied, inasmuch as to his own burden of regret must be added the knowledge that through his premature action he had given another man the right to execrate his name so long as they both should live.

For a second Anstice wondered, growing cold whether Cheniston would refuse to shake hands with him. In his heart he knew quite well, had always known, that he had not been to blame in that bygone episode; that although he had done a thing which must haunt him for the rest of his life by reason of its tragic uselessness, as a man in whom a woman had trusted he had had no alternative but to act as he had acted.

Yet of all men on earth Cheniston might well question the necessity of his action; and Anstice told himself with a fast-beating heart that he would have no right to resentment should the other refuse to take his hand, to sit at meat with the man who had deprived Hilda Ryder of her share in the gracious inheritance of life in the world she had called so beautiful.

For a second, indeed, Cheniston himself hesitated, checked in the friendly greeting he had been about to bestow on his sister's visitor. He had arrived late that evening, and had been dismissed to dress with the hasty information that two guests were expected to dinner, but he had had no idea of the last arrival's identity; and to him, too, the meeting brought back with horrible poignancy that last bitter interview in the haunted East.

Then, for Bruce Cheniston was sufficiently just to acquit Anstice of any share in this untoward situation, he held out his hand with a cold courtesy which plainly betokened no intention of alluding to any former meeting.

"Good evening." Their hands touched, then fell apart. "You are a new-comer to Littlefield, I understand. Like the place?"

"Yes—in moderation," rejoined Anstice with equally frigid courtesy. "The country has its charms—at this season of the year."

"It has charms at all seasons, Dr. Anstice." Iris' light voice challenged him, even while her grey eyes noted the strange expression in his face. "I'm afraid you're not a real country lover if you qualify your affection by picking out a particular season!"

"You remind one of those people who love dogs—'in their proper place.'" Chloe's tone was delicately quizzical. "On inquiry you find their proper place is outside—in some kennel or inclosure as far away from the speaker as it is possible to get!"

"You can't be charged with that particular kind of affection, Chloe." There was an assertive note in Cheniston's voice when he spoke to his sister which was new to her. "You think a dog's proper place is the best armchair or the downiest bed in the house!"

For a second Chloe did not reply; and without waiting Bruce went on speaking.

"By the way, where are your dogs? I've not seen hide or hair of one since I arrived."

Again there was a short, but quite perceptible silence. Then Chloe said tranquilly:

"No wonder you haven't seen any dogs, Bruce. There aren't any to see."

"No dogs?" Bruce was frankly astonished. "Why, in the old days you used to declare you couldn't live without them!"

Just for a second a quiver of emotion convulsed Chloe's usually impassive face. Then she laughed, and Anstice thought her laugh almost painful in its artificiality.

"My dear Bruce," she said, "please remember the old days are as dead as—as Queen Anne. When I was young enough and foolish enough to believe in disinterested affection, and in the right of every creature to be happy, I adored dogs—or thought I did. Now I am wiser, and know that life is not all bones and playtime, so to speak. Besides, they always die when one is fond of them, and I quite agree with Kipling that with so much unavoidable discomfort to put up with, it's the height of folly to 'give one's heart to a dog to tear.' In future I yield no fraction of my heart to any living creature—not even a dog."

Certainly Chloe's drawing-room was a battlefield of conflicting emotions this evening. Just for a moment she had been shaken out of her usual poise, had spoken warmly, as a normal woman might have done; yet both Iris who loved her, and Anstice who had studied her, knew that this warmer manner, this apparent freedom of speech, was in reality the outward sign of some inward disturbance; and both guessed, vaguely, that the meeting with her brother, who had not been in England for several years, was the cause of her unusual animation.

Fortunately as she finished speaking the gong which summoned them to dinner began to sound; and a moment later Bruce offered his arm to Iris and led her into the dining-room, followed by Anstice and his hostess.

Not appearing to notice his proffered arm, Chloe walked beside him in a sudden pensive silence which Anstice found oddly appealing after her impetuous speech; and for a moment he forgot his own equivocal position in a desire to help her through what he guessed to be a trying moment.

Once seated at the pretty round table things became easier. The room was softly lit by innumerable candles—a fancy of Chloe's—and in their tender light both women looked their best. As usual Mrs. Carstairs wore white, the fittest setting, Anstice thought, for her pale and tragic grace; but to-night she had thrown a wonderful Chinese scarf round her shoulders, and the deep blue ground, embroidered with black and green birds and flowers, gave an unusually distinctive note to her elusive personality. Opposite to her Iris, in her filmy grey-green frock, a big bunch of violets at her breast, wore the look of a nymph, some woodland creature whose fragrant charm and youthful freshness were in striking contrast to Chloe's more finished beauty.

The conversation, once started, ran easily enough. Although he never mentioned India, Cheniston was ready enough to talk of Egypt, where for some years he had made his home; and Iris, to whose young imagination the very name of that mysterious land was a charm, listened entranced to his description of a trip he had lately taken up the Nile.

"You are an engineer, Mr. Cheniston?" Anstice interpolated a polite question and Cheniston answered in the same tone.

"Yes. And engineering in the land of the Pharaohs is no joke. You must remember that we, as engineers, are only now where they were thousands of years ago. I mean that our present-day feats, the Dam at Assouan, wonderful as it is, and the rest, are mere child's play compared with the marvels they constructed in their day."

"So I have been told before." Only Anstice knew how hard it was to sit there conversing as though he and this man shared no tragic memory in common. "But if Egyptologists are to be believed there is hardly any invention, any scientific discovery—so called—which wasn't known to the Egyptians many thousands of years before the birth of Christ."

"They even possessed aeroplanes, didn't they?" asked Iris, smiling; and Bruce Cheniston turned to her with an involuntary softening in his rather harsh voice.

"So it is stated, I believe," he said, with an answering smile. "And it is generally believed that in the lost Continent of Atlantis——"

He went on talking, not monopolizing the conversation, but keeping it going so skilfully that Iris, at least, did not recognize the fact that both Mrs. Carstairs and Anstice were more than ordinarily silent as the meal progressed.

When the short but perfect dinner was finished Chloe rose.

"We will have coffee in the drawing-room, Bruce," she said as she moved slowly to the door. "If you are not too long over your cigarettes I daresay Miss Wayne will sing for us."

"With that inducement we shall soon follow you," said Cheniston gravely; and as Iris passed through the door which Anstice held open for her she gave him a friendly little smile which somehow nerved him for the ordeal which he foresaw to be at hand.

Closing the door he came back again to the table, but did not yet sit down. Bruce had already reseated himself and was pouring out a glass of port, an operation he interrupted with a perfunctory apology.

"Forgive me—pray help yourself." He pushed the decanter across the table, but Anstice shook his head.

"No, thanks." He hesitated a moment, then plunged into the subject which must surely be uppermost in both their minds. "See here, Cheniston, I should like you to understand that when I accepted Mrs. Carstairs' kind hospitality to-night I had no idea you were the brother I was to meet."

For a second Cheniston said nothing, his brown hand playing absently with a pair of nutcrackers beside him. Then he raised his head and looked Anstice squarely in the face.

"I am quite ready to believe that," he said slowly. "I can hardly conceive any circumstances in which you would care to run the risk of a meeting with me."

"Quite so." Something in Cheniston's manner made Anstice suddenly angry. "Though I would ask you, in common fairness, to believe that my distaste for such a meeting rises rather from my reluctance to remind you of the past than from any acknowledgment that you have a right to resent my presence."

Again Bruce Cheniston looked him in the face; and this time there was a genuine surprise in his blue eyes.

"I don't think I have given you reason to suppose I resent meeting you," he said with a new note in his voice, a note of something more definitely like hostility than he had hitherto permitted himself to show. "Since you have started the subject I may say that as a rule one doesn't greet as a brother the man who has robbed one of one's most treasured possession—I'm speaking metaphorically, of course—but I think you can hardly find fault with my—hesitation just now."

"Oh, you have been politeness itself," said Anstice, rather bitterly. "And in return for your forbearance I will relieve you of my unwelcome presence immediately. Luckily my profession makes it easy for me to behave with what, in another man, would appear discourtesy."

He turned towards the door; but Bruce's voice arrested him midway.

"One moment, Dr. Anstice." His tone was less openly hostile. "Don't go yet, please. There are still one or two things to be said between us. Will you do me the favour of sitting down again and letting us talk a little?"

"I don't see what good will come of it, but I'll stay if you wish." Anstice returned to the table, and drawing out a chair—the one which Iris had occupied during the meal—he sat down and lighted a cigarette with a slightly defiant air.

"To begin with"—Cheniston spoke abruptly—"I gather you know my sister's story—know the bitter injustice that has been done to her in this damned place?"

Rather taken aback Anstice hesitated before replying, and Cheniston continued without waiting for him to speak:

"I say you know it, because my sister has a code of honour which forbids her welcoming to her house anyone who is ignorant of that horrible chapter in her history. And since I find you here, not only as a doctor, but as a friend, I gather you believe she was innocent of the charge against her."

"Most certainly I believe in Mrs. Carstairs' innocence." He spoke warmly now.

"For that, at least, I am grateful to you." His tone did not betray overwhelming gratitude, yet Anstice felt a sudden lightening of his spirit. "To me, of course, it is absolutely inconceivable how anyone could believe my sister guilty of such a degrading crime—or series of crimes—but doubtless I am biassed in her favour. Still, you are a new acquaintance, and don't know her as I do; so that I am grateful to you for your clear-sightedness in the matter."

He broke off for a moment to drink some wine. Then:

"I should like to ask you one question. Does my sister know of that episode in India? I mean, of course, of your share in the affair?"

"No. And," said Anstice, "it has been puzzling me for the last couple of hours to understand how it is that she has not connected my name with you. Didn't she know it at the time?"

"I daresay. But you must remember that my sister has gone through a great deal since that day, three years ago. Very soon after that she became involved in that terrible chain of events which led to her public humiliation; and I haven't a shadow of doubt that the names of the actors in the tragedy which broke up my life vanished completely from her memory. As you may have noticed, Chloe is a self-centred woman. Her sympathies are not deep, nor her interests wide. Her own life is a good deal more interesting to her than the lives of other people—it is generally so with strong characters, I believe—and after all, her own tragedy has been so appalling that she may be excused if she has not a very keen curiosity for those of others."

"I quite agree with you. But"—it was Anstice's turn to look Cheniston fully in the face—"do I understand you wish me to tell your sister of our former—acquaintance?"

After his question there fell a silence, during which Anstice had time to study the other man more fully than he had hitherto done.

Like himself, Cheniston had altered since that day in India. Although still sunburned and florid, a typical young Englishman in his square-shouldered build and general air of clean fitness, there was something in his face which had not been there before, which warred oddly with the youth which still lurked in the blue eyes and round the clean-shaven mouth. The boyishness had vanished from his features, taking with it all hint of softness; and in its place was a hard, assertive look, the look of one who, having been once worsted in a bout with Fate, through no fault of his own, was determined for the future to keep a sharp lookout for his own interests and well-being.

That it was a stronger face there was no denying, but it was also a far less attractive one than that which Bruce Cheniston, the boy, had presented to the world.

At another moment Anstice would have found occasion for interested speculation in the question as to whether or no this new man were the real Bruce Cheniston—the Cheniston who would eventually have come to the surface no matter how his life had been ordained; and as a psychologist he would have found pleasure in debating the subject in all its aspects. But as things were he was too miserably conscious that to him, indirectly, this change from boy to man was due to take any interest in the subtler question as to whether, after all, the alteration was only the logical outcome of the man's true character, uninfluenced by external happenings.

* * * * *

"No." Cheniston spoke so suddenly that Anstice started. "On the whole I see no reason why my sister need be told the truth. Of course, one day the similarity of name may flash upon her, and then, naturally, she must be told."

"Quite so." Anstice played with an empty glass for a moment. "As a matter of fact I should really prefer Mrs. Carstairs to know the truth. Of course the decision rests with you; but if you see your way to telling her the story, pray don't be held back from doing so by any scruples on my account. Besides——"

Suddenly, so suddenly that he broke off involuntarily in his sentence, the notes of the piano rang out from the room across the hall, and without thinking what he did he rose hastily to his feet.

"Miss Wayne is going to sing." Cheniston followed his lead politely. "Shall we go and listen to the concert, Anstice?"

"As you like. Forgive my abruptness, Cheniston." He had realized he had acted unconventionally. "Miss Wayne's singing is a treat one doesn't want to lose."

With a queer little smile Cheniston led the way across the hall, and they entered the drawing-room, Iris bringing her prelude to a close as the door opened to admit them.

"Come and sit down, Dr. Anstice." Chloe indicated a deep chair beside the piano, and nothing loth, Anstice sat down as directed, while Cheniston, his face a little in shadow, stood by one of the widely-opened casements, through which the scents of the sleeping garden stole softly, like a benison from the heart of the pitiful earth.

A moment later Iris began to sing, and once again her rich, soft tones seemed to cast a spell over Anstice's troubled, bitter spirit.

From his low seat he had an unimpeded view of the singer. Her profile, shaded by her soft, fair hair, looked unusually pure and delicate in the candlelight, and as she sang the rise and fall of her breast in its fold of filmy chiffon, the motion of her hands over the ivory keys, the sweet seriousness of her expression, gave her an appearance of radiant, tender youth which held an appeal as potent as it was unconscious.

When she had finished her song, the last notes dying away into silence, Cheniston came forward quickly.

"Miss Wayne, you sing beautifully. May we ask for another song? You're not tired, are you?"

He bent over her as he spoke, and something in his manner, something subtly protective, made Anstice's heart beat with a sudden fierce jealousy which he knew to be quite unjustifiable.

"No, I'm not in the least tired." Iris lifted her grey eyes frankly to Cheniston's face, and again Anstice, watching, felt a pang of whose nature he could have no doubt. He rose from his chair, with a half-formed intention of adding his entreaties to those of Cheniston, but sank back again as he realized the favour was already won.

"I will sing with pleasure." Iris turned on the music-stool to glance at her hostess, and Anstice saw her face, pearly and luminous in the soft candlelight. "Mrs. Carstairs, you like Dvorak. Shall I sing you one of his gipsy songs?"

"Please, Iris." Few words of endearment ever passed between the two, yet each felt something like real affection for the other, and Chloe's deep voice was always gentle when she spoke to Iris.

The next moment Cheniston stepped back and took up his former position on the far side of the piano; and Iris began the simple little melody which Dvorak acquired from the gipsies of his native land.

"Songs my mother taught me In the days long vanished!"

So far Anstice heard the pure, soft voice; and suddenly he felt a half-shy, half-reverential wonder as to what manner of woman she had been who had brought this adorable girl into the world. Surely Fate had been cruel to this unknown woman, inasmuch as Death had been permitted to snatch her away before her eyes had been gladdened by the vision of her child grown into this priceless, this wonderful youth, which held a hint of a yet more gracious, yet more desirable womanhood....

And then the second verse stole softly on the quiet air....

"Now I teach my children Each melodious measure...."

Again did one, at least, of Iris' hearers lose the remaining lines. For to Anstice these words brought another vision—a vision in which Iris, this fair-haired girl who looked so adorably young and sweet, bent over a little child whose rose-leaf face was a baby replica of her own....

And suddenly Anstice knew, knew irrevocably, beyond shadow of doubt, that he wanted Iris Wayne for himself, that she was the one woman in all the world he desired to make his wife....

With a wild throb of his heart he looked up—to find Bruce Cheniston's eyes fixed upon his face with a half-mocking smile in their blue depths, of whose hostile meaning there could be no question.

* * * * *

An hour or so later, when the guests had departed, and Cheniston had finished a solitary pipe downstairs, he went up, yawning, to bed. Passing his sister's open door he heard her call him, and after a second's indecision he answered the summons, wondering why she were not already asleep.

Chloe was sitting by the open window, wearing a thin grey wrapper which made her look curiously pale and ethereal. Her thick hair hung in two heavy plaits over her shoulders, and in the dim light her face showed indistinctly in its silky black frame.

"Chloe, why aren't you in bed?" Bruce paused half-way across the room.

"I'm not sleepy," she said indifferently. "I often sit here half the night. Bruce"—her voice grew more alert—"have you and Dr. Anstice met before?"

"Yes," he said, "we have. But why do you ask?"

"I thought there was something rather curious about your meeting," she answered slowly. "At first I could not understand it, and then it dawned upon me that you had met—and distrusted one another—before."

"Distrusted?" He stared at her. "That isn't the right word, Chloe. We have met before—in India. I almost wonder you yourself didn't realize that fact, but I suppose you were not sufficiently interested——"

She interrupted him without ceremony.

"I? But how should I realize ... unless"—suddenly her intuition serving her as it serves so many women, she grasped the truth with a quickness which surprised even her brother—"was that the name of the man who—you don't mean it was Dr. Anstice who ... who...."

He nodded.

"Yes. I see you've grasped the truth. Anstice is an uncommon name, and I'm surprised you did not recognize it earlier."

"I had forgotten it." She stared at him, her blue eyes narrowing as her mind worked quickly. "I see now. Dr. Anstice is the man——"

"Who shot Hilda Ryder." Cheniston finished her sentence for her calmly, but she saw him whiten beneath his tan. "Yes. He is the man all right. We met, once, in Bombay—afterwards. And now you know why our meeting to-night was not calculated to give either of us any great pleasure."

"Yes. I know now." She spoke slowly, almost meditatively. "And I know, too, why he always looks so sad. Bruce, from the bottom of my heart I pity that man."

"You do?" Bruce's eyebrows rose. "I confess I don't see why you should waste your pity on him. I think you might bestow a little more of it on me—though it is rather late for pity now."

"On you?" Slowly her blue gaze rested on his face. "Bruce, you don't compare your position with his? Surely even you can understand that he is a thousand times more to be pitied than you? I always thought there was a tragedy in Dr. Anstice's life. But I never dreamed it was quite so piteous as this."

Bruce uttered an exclamation of impatience.

"I didn't expect such sentimentality from you, Chloe. I gathered from your conversation before dinner that you were pretty well disillusioned by this time, and it rather surprises me to hear you pouring out your compassion on a man like Anstice, who certainly doesn't strike me as requiring any outside sympathy."

For a moment there was silence, while Chloe played absently with a bracelet she had just discarded. Then she said tranquilly:

"You never were overburdened with brains, Bruce, though I grant you do well in your own profession. But, if you fail to see the reason why Dr. Anstice is deserving of more compassion than you I'm afraid it's hopeless to expect anything very brilliant from you in the future."

Cheniston's eyes darkened and his jaw set itself aggressively. For a moment his sister found him an unfamiliar personality, and in her own indifferent way asked herself whether after all she had ever known her brother thoroughly.

Then as she was considering the problem, and finding it mildly attractive, Bruce turned on his heel and strode sulkily to the door.

"Good night," he said angrily as he reached it. "You're in one of your aggravating moods to-night, and it's no use me staying to talk to you."

"Not a bit of use," she assented serenely; and her brother went out, nearly falling over Tochatti, who was evidently about to seek admission to her mistress's room.

"Why on earth aren't you in bed, Tochatti?" His inward annoyance made him speak harshly; but Tochatti apparently bore no resentment.

She murmured something to which he paid scant attention; and then, standing aside for him to pass her, she quietly entered the room he had just quitted, and proceeded with her final duties for the night.



CHAPTER VII

For two or three weeks after his meeting with Mrs. Carstairs' brother, Anstice avoided both Cherry Orchard and Greengates.

From a chance word in the village he had learned that Bruce Cheniston was prolonging his visit to his sister; and that new and totally unreasoning jealousy which had assailed Anstice as he saw Cheniston bending over Iris Wayne at the piano told him with a horrid certainty that to the girl herself belonged the responsibility for this change in the young man's plans.

In his calmer moments Anstice could not help admitting the suitability of a friendship, at least, between the two. Although he had lost much of his attractive boyishness Cheniston was a good-looking fellow enough; and there was no denying the fact that he and Miss Wayne were a well-matched pair so far as youth and vitality and general good looks went; and yet Anstice could not visualize the pair together without a fierce, wild pang of jealousy which pierced his heart with an almost intolerable anguish.

For he wanted Iris Wayne for himself. He loved her; and therein lay tragedy; for he told himself miserably that he had no right to ask her to couple her radiant young life with his, already overshadowed by that past happening in India.

Not only that, but he was already over thirty, she but eighteen; and Sir Richard Wayne's daughter was only too well provided with this world's goods, while he, with all his training, all his toil, was even yet a comparatively poor man, with nothing to offer the girl in exchange for the luxurious home from which he would fain take her.

On every count he knew himself to be ineligible; and in the same flash of insight he saw Bruce Cheniston, young, good-looking, distinguished in his profession, in the receipt of a large salary; and owned to himself, with that clarity of vision which rarely failed him, that Cheniston, rather than he, was a fit suitor for Iris Wayne.

On several occasions during those weeks of May he saw the two together; and each time this happened he felt as though the sun had vanished from the sky, as though the soft breezes of early summer were turned to the cold and hopeless blast of an icy north-easter.