"If I believed in signs and omens I should take this as an unmistakable invitation to me to hesitate no longer." He fingered the syringe thoughtfully. "And upon my soul I don't see why I shouldn't accept it as a sign. In any case"—all the pent-up bitterness of his soul found vent in the words—"in future what I do can have no interest for Iris Cheniston!"

As if the sound of the name, premature as it was, had put the finishing touch to his reckless cynicism, he hesitated no longer.

With an almost savage gesture he struck a match and lighted a candle on his writing-table; and as the little yellow flame sprang up, and strove, vainly, to enlighten the encompassing gloom, he set about his preparations with a sudden energy in striking contrast with his previous lethargy.

When all was ready there came a last second of hesitation. With the syringe in his hand, his arm bared, he paused, and for a last poignant moment Iris' face rose before him in the flickering light. But now her eyes had no power to move him from his purpose. Rather they maddened him with their steadfast radiance, and with a muttered oath he looked aside from that appealing vision and turned the key, recklessly, in the door which led to the Paradise of Fools.

* * * * *

Nearly an hour later the telephone bell rang, sharply, insistently in the hall. It went on ringing, again and again, a curiously vital sound in the quiet house; but Anstice did not hear it, and at length the ringing ceased.

It was nearly half an hour later when another bell rang, this time the bell of the front door; but again no answer came to the imperative summons. And now the bell rang on, so continuously, so persistently, that at last its sound penetrated the dulled hearing of the man who huddled in a corner of the big couch, mind and body alike dazed and incapable of making any effort to understand the meaning of this oddly insistent noise.

He was only conscious of a desire for it to cease; of a longing, not sufficiently vivid to be acute, but the strongest emotion of which he was at the moment capable, for a return to the silence which had hitherto prevailed; and although the noise disturbed and angered him it never occurred to him that to answer the summons would be the best way of ending the irritating sound.

So that bell too went unanswered; and in due course it also ceased to ring.

But that was not to be the end.

Dimly he heard the sound of voices, of footsteps in the hall, of the striking of a match and the hissing of the gas. Then there was a confused noise which was like and yet unlike a rapping on the panels of the door of the room in which he sat; but he felt no inclination whatever to move or make any response; and even when at length the door itself opened, slowly and tentatively, he merely looked up with languid curiosity to see what these phenomena might imply.

* * * * *

And in the doorway stood Iris Wayne, her face very pale, one hand holding a flimsy scarf about her, with Bruce Cheniston by her side.



CHAPTER XII

Chloe Carstairs had not been among the guests at Greengates that afternoon. In vain had Sir Richard and Lady Laura invited her, in vain had Iris added her entreaties. On this point Chloe was adamant, and although her brother argued with her for an hour or more on the advisability of making her reappearance in Littlefield society under the aegis of the Waynes, she merely shook her head with an inscrutable smile.

"If I cared to re-enter Littlefield society," she said calmly, "I should have done so long ago. But I am really so indifferent to those people that I have no desire to meet them, even as a guest at Greengates."

"I didn't suppose you wanted to meet them—for your own sake," retorted her brother, "for a duller and more stupid set of people were never born; but as Iris is to be your sister-in-law I think you might stretch a point and go with me to Greengates this afternoon."

But Chloe shook her head.

"No, Bruce. I am sorry to disappoint you, but it cannot be done. As you know, I am fond of Iris"—knowing his sister Bruce was quite satisfied with this moderate expression of her affection—"but I won't go to Greengates to-day, nor to the wedding to-morrow. If you like to bring Iris down to say good-bye this evening when all the people are gone I shall like to see her."

"All right." Bruce gave up the contest. "I'm staying on—quietly—to dinner; but I'll bring her down for half an hour afterwards."

"Very well." Chloe rose from the breakfast-table as she spoke, and sauntered to the window, from whence she looked over the pretty garden with appreciative eyes. "It is lucky the weather is so beautiful—Greengates will look at its best on a day like this."

And Bruce agreed heartily as he stepped on to the lawn to enjoy his after-breakfast pipe.

* * * * *

True to his promise Bruce motored his fiancee over to Cherry Orchard in the gloaming of the September evening, after a somewhat protracted argument with Lady Laura, whose sense of propriety was, so she averred, outraged by the project.

Sir Richard, however, to whom the loss of his only daughter was a deep though hidden grief, gave his consent readily enough when he saw that Iris really wished to bid her friend good-bye; and making Bruce promise to bring her back in good time he himself went to the door to pack them safely into the motor.

"Take care of her, Bruce—she is very precious to me!" He laid his hand on the young man's arm, and his voice held an appeal which Bruce involuntarily answered.

"Trust me, sir!" There was a note of rather unusual feeling in his tone. "She can't be more precious to you than she is to me!"

And with the words he got his car in motion and glided away down the dusky, scented avenue beneath the tall trees which had not, as yet, put off their summer tints for their autumn livery of scarlet and gold.

Somehow they did not talk much as they sped on through the cool, perfumed night. Both, indeed, felt a sense of shyness in each other's company on this last evening; and it was with something like relief that they realized they were at Cherry Orchard in less time than they generally allowed for the little journey.

The hall door, as usual, stood hospitably open; but there was no sign of Chloe, waiting for them with her gracious welcome; and as they crossed the threshold both felt instinctively that something was wrong.

A moment later their suspicions were confirmed, for Hagyard, the manservant, who adored both his mistress and her small daughter, came forward to meet them with an air of relief which did not conceal the anxiety in his whole bearing.

"Mr. Cheniston—sir—there's been an accident—Miss Cherry—she's burnt——"

"Burnt!" Iris and Bruce echoed the word simultaneously; and the man hurried on.

"Yes, sir, yes, miss—Miss Cherry got playing with matches—Tochatti left her alone for a moment when she did not ought to have done"—in his distress his usual correctness of speech and deportment fell away from Hagyard, leaving him a mere human man—"and Miss Cherry's dress—a little flimsy bit of muslin it was, caught fire, and before it was put out she'd got burned——"

"Where is Mrs. Carstairs?"

"Upstairs with Miss Cherry, sir. We've been ringing up the doctor—but we can't get no answer——"

Bruce cut him short without ceremony.

"Come, Iris, let's see what's to be done. We can go ourselves and fetch the doctor, anyway."

Together they ran up the broad staircase, and Bruce led the way to Cherry's little room, where, as he guessed, the child was lying.

As they entered Chloe Carstairs looked round; and her eyes appeared almost black, so dilated were the pupils.

"Bruce!" Her deep voice held a note of relief. "You have come at last—now perhaps we can do something for the child."

"Is she badly burnt?" Iris approached softly and stood looking down at the moaning little figure in the bed.

"Yes." Chloe's manner was impressive by reason of its very quietness. "She is—very badly burnt, and until the doctor comes we can do so little...."

"You have done something for her?"

"Oh, yes—Tochatti and I have done all we can, but"—for a second Chloe's face quivered—"we can't do anything more, and I'm afraid if something isn't done soon——"

The child on the bed gave a sudden convulsive cry, and Chloe's white face grew still paler.

"You see—she's in horrible pain, and—oh, why doesn't the doctor come? We've rung up again and again, and they've never answered!"

"Shall we go and fetch him, Chloe? The car's here, and we'll bring him back in no time!" He turned to Iris. "You'll come?"

She hesitated.

"Won't you go—and I'll stay here?"

Chloe looked up at that.

"No, Iris. I don't want you to stay—yet. Go with Bruce, and when you come back you shall stay—if you will."

"Very well." Iris deemed it best to do as she was requested. "We will go—immediately—we shall soon be back."

They ran downstairs together as swiftly as they had run up a few minutes earlier; and in an incredibly short space of time the car was flying through the sweet night air once more.

Arriving at the Gables they could win no response to their ringing; but it was imperative they should gain an entrance; and so it came about that the first time Iris entered Anstice's house she entered it unheralded, and unwelcomed by any friendly greeting.

So, too, it came about that when Anstice at last awoke to the fact that there were other human beings in the house beside himself he realized, with a pang of consternation and amazement sufficiently sharp to pierce even through the fog which clouded his spirit, that one of his uninvited guests was the girl from whom, a few short hours earlier, he had parted, as he thought, for ever.

He half rose from the couch on which he crouched, and stared at the advancing figures with haunted eyes.

"I ... I ..." His voice, husky, uncertain, brought both his visitors to a halt; and for a wild moment he fancied that after all they were no real beings, only more than usually vivid shadows, projected visions from the whirling phantasmagoria of his brain. The light behind them, streaming in through the open door, confused him, made him feel as though this were all a trick of the nerves, a kind of chaotic nightmare; and with a muttered curse at his own folly in imagining for one moment that Iris Wayne herself stood before him, he fell back on the couch and closed his aching eyes wearily.

"Anstice—I say, you're wanted—badly—at Cherry Orchard." Surely that was Bruce Cheniston's voice which beat upon his ears until it reached his inner sense. Yet what was that he was saying ... something about an accident ... to Cherry ... but the time of cherries was over ... surely now the summer was dead ... he was cold, bitterly cold, the fire must be out, his teeth were chattering ... there was a mist before his eyes....

"Dr. Anstice, is anything the matter? Are you ill?"

That voice belonged to no one on earth but Iris Wayne, yet that insubstantial grey shadow which seemed to speak was only another ghost, a figment of his overwrought brain. He wished—how he wished—that these ghosts would leave him, would return to the haunted place whence they came and allow him to sink once more into the blessed oblivion from which they called him with their thin, far-away voices....

"It's no use, Iris!" Cheniston spoke abruptly, puzzled by the other man's strange behaviour, to which as yet he could assign no cause. "The man's asleep—or dazed—or—or"—suddenly a suspicion swept into his brain—"or perhaps there's a less creditable cause for this extraordinary behaviour."

"What do you mean, Bruce?" Iris' grey eyes dilated and her face blanched. "Is he—ill—or——"

"I am not—ill, Miss Wayne." Somehow he had caught her words, her dear voice had penetrated through the fog which enveloped his senses. "Don't, please, be afraid.... I ... I am only ..."

"Anyway you're not fit to speak to a lady," cut in Cheniston incisively. "We came to fetch you to Cherry Orchard; there's been on accident, my little niece is badly hurt and Mrs. Carstairs wanted you—but it's evident you're not in a fit state to come...."

Once more the fog lifted for a moment; and although he felt everything to be whirling round him Anstice rose unsteadily to his feet and faced his accuser.

Through the open door the light streamed on to his haggard face; and as she saw the ravages which suffering had wrought in him Iris uttered an exclamation.

"Don't be afraid, Miss Wayne." He could only, it seemed, repeat himself. "I ... I didn't expect any one coming here." He spoke slowly, a pause between each word. "I ... if there's anything—I can do——"

"There isn't—unless you can pull yourself together sufficiently to come to Cherry Orchard," said Cheniston coldly. "And judging from your appearance you can't do that."

The contempt in his voice stung Anstice momentarily into self-defence.

"What are you implying?" He spoke a little more clearly now, "I ... I believe after all I'm ill—but——"

At that moment Bruce's eyes, roving here and there, caught sight of a small decanter of brandy which stood on the table at his elbow. As a matter of fact it had been brought there for a patient whose nerves had failed him, earlier in the day, on hearing what practically amounted to a sentence of death; but to Cheniston the innocent object appeared as the confirmation of his suspicions, and his lip curled.

"Come along, Iris." His disdain was cruel. "We must go and find some one else—some one who hasn't fuddled his wits like our friend here."

Iris' eyes, following his, had seen the brandy; and in a flash of insight she knew what he meant. But before she could speak, could utter the denial which trembled on her lips, Anstice himself interposed.

"You are mistaken, Cheniston." He still spoke haltingly, but his eyes looked less dim than they had done a moment ago. "That"—he pointed to the decanter—"is not my particular vice. I confess I am not myself to-night; and I fear I'm not capable of attending any one for the present; but it is not brandy which is responsible, I assure you of that."

He stopped, feeling suddenly that the effort of speech was too much for him. A terrible dizziness was overwhelming him ... he had only one desire on earth, that Iris Wayne would leave him, that he might sink down on to the couch again, and let the fathomless sea which was surging round him drown his soul and senses in its rolling flood....

Yet by a great effort he stood upright, steadying himself by the edge of the table; and through all his mental and physical misery he saw Iris' grey eyes fixed upon his face with a great pity in their depths.

"Dr. Anstice"—regardless of Bruce's presence she took up the hypodermic syringe which lay on the table, gleaming in a strong beam of light which streamed through the open door—"you have been trying this way out—again?"

Her voice, which held no condemnation, only an overwhelming compassion, drove back for a moment those cruel waves which surged around him; and when he answered her his voice was almost steady.

"Yes, Miss Wayne. I ... I could find no other way, and so—I took this one."

Iris placed the syringe down gently on the table, and her eyes were full of tears.

"Dr. Anstice, I'm sorry," she said in a low tone; and the pity in her voice nearly broke his heart.

"Miss Wayne—I——"

What he would have said she never knew; for Bruce Cheniston broke in angrily, annoyed by a scene to which he held no key.

"Look here, Iris, we mustn't waste time. Cherry's badly hurt, and since Dr. Anstice can't come someone else must be found. Come along, we'll be off and find another doctor—one who can be relied upon."

The mists were closing in on Anstice once more, the hungry sea which billowed round him threatened to engulf him body and soul. Yet he thought he heard Iris striving to silence Cheniston's cruel words, he could have sworn he saw her eyes, big with tears, shining through the mist which kept him from her; and with a mental effort which turned him cold he spoke once more to her before she left him.

"Miss Wayne ... please don't condemn me altogether ... I did not give in at once ... but this seemed—before God, I thought it was the only way out—to-night...."

And then the miracle happened. Regardless of the man who stood fuming by her side, Iris laid her soft hand on Anstice's arm and spoke one last gentle word.

"Dr. Anstice, I believe you—and good-bye! But—oh, do, do remember—for my sake let me ask you to remember that this is not the true way out!"

And then, as Cheniston took her arm impatiently to lead her away, she smiled through the tears which threatened to blind her, and went out from his presence without one reproachful word.

* * * * *

When she had gone he stood gazing after her for a long moment, and the look in his face would have broken the heart of a woman who had loved him. Then, with a despairing feeling that now nothing mattered in all the world, he sank down again on the couch and let the flood overwhelm him as it would.



CHAPTER XIII

As the clocks were striking ten on the following morning, the morning of Iris Wayne's wedding day, Anstice came slowly down the garden to where his car waited by the gate.

It was a glorious September morning, the whole world bathed in a flood of golden sunshine, and the soft, warm air was heavy with the scent of sweet-peas, of stocks, of the hundred and one fragrant flowers which deck the late summer days. Away over the fields hung an enchanting blue haze which promised yet greater heat when it too should have dissolved before the mellow rays of the sun; and if there be any truth in the old saw that happy is the portion of the bride on whom the sun shall shine, then truly the lot of Iris Wayne should be a happy one.

But in Anstice's face there was no reflected sunshine on this auspicious morning. Rather did he look incredibly haggard and worn, and his colourless lips and purple-shadowed eyes were in strangest contrast to the smiling face of Nature.

It was only by a very strong effort of will that Anstice had driven himself forth to embark upon his day's work. The horrible night through which he had passed had left traces on both body and soul; and the thought of that which was to happen to-day, the thought of the ceremony in the little flower-decked church by which the girl he adored would be given as wife to another man was nothing short of torture to this man who loved her.

He would have given half he possessed to be able to blot out this day from his calendar—to pass the whole of it in a state of oblivion, of forgetfulness, to cheat life of its fiercest suffering for a few hours at least; but Iris herself blocked the way to that last indulgence. She had bidden him remember—for her sake—that the way he had taken was not in truth the way out; and although every nerve in his body cried out for relief, nothing in the world could have persuaded him to mar Iris' wedding-day by an act whose commission would have grieved her had she known of it.

And since to sit at home, brooding over the dimly-remembered events of the preceding night, would be fatal, there was nothing for it but to go out and strive to forget his own mental agony in an attempt to alleviate the physical suffering of those who trusted him to relieve their bodily woes at least.

He was about to enter his car when he heard the hoot of a motor-horn behind him; and turning round, one foot on the step, saw his friendly rival, Dr. Willows, driving up to intercept him.

"Hallo, Anstice, glad you're not out. I wanted to see you."

Anstice moved forward to meet him, but Dr. Willows, an agile little man of middle age, hopped out of his car, and taking Anstice's arm moved with him out of ear-shot of the waiting chauffeur.

"Well?" Anstice's voice was not inviting.

"It's about that affair at Cherry Orchard." Involuntarily Anstice's arm stiffened, and the other man dropped it as he went on speaking. "I was called in last night, and hearing you were ill—by the way, are you better now?" He broke off abruptly and peered into Anstice's face with disconcerting keenness.

"Quite, thanks. It was only a temporary indisposition," returned Anstice coldly; and Dr. Willows relaxed his gaze.

"Glad to hear it—though you look pretty seedy this morning. You know you really work too hard, Anstice. I assure you your predecessor didn't take half the trouble with his patients that you do——"

"You'll excuse me reminding you that I have not begun my round yet." Anstice interrupted him impatiently. "You were saying you were called in to Cherry Orchard——"

"Yes. The little girl was badly burnt—owing to some carelessness on the part of the servants—and since you were not available——"

"Who told you I was not available?" His tone was grim.

"Why, Miss Wayne, of course. You know she and Mr. Cheniston came on to see me after finding you weren't able to go owing to being seedy yourself"—even Anstice's sore spirit could not doubt the little man's absolute ignorance of the nature of his supposed illness—"and they asked me to go in your place. So as it was an urgent case of course I did not hesitate to go."

"Of course not." Anstice strove to speak naturally. "Well, you went?"

"Yes, and treated the child. As you know, she is only a kiddie, and the shock has been as bad as the actual burns, though they are severe enough."

"Have you been there to-day?"

"No—that's what I came to see you about. I stayed pretty late last night, and left the child asleep; but now, of course, you will take over the case. Mrs. Carstairs understood I was only filling your place, you know."

"Do you think"—Anstice hesitated oddly, and Dr. Willows told himself the man looked shockingly ill—"do you think Mrs. Carstairs would prefer you to continue the case?"

"Good Lord, no!" Dr. Willows stared. "Why, what bee have you got in your bonnet now? I told you Mrs. Carstairs knew I was only representing you because you were ill, and couldn't come, and I told her I would run over first thing this morning and see if you were able to take on the case yourself."

"What did Mrs. Carstairs say to that?"

"She agreed, of course. And if I were you"—Dr. Willows felt vaguely uncomfortable as he stood there in the morning sunshine—"I'd go round pretty soon." He looked at his watch ostentatiously. "By Jove, it's after ten—I must get on. Then you'll go round to Cherry Orchard this morning?"

"Yes." Anstice accepted the inevitable. "I'll go round almost immediately. Thanks very much for coming, Willows. I ... I'm grateful to you."

"Oh, that's all right!" Dr. Willows, relieved by the change in Anstice's manner, waved his hand airily and returned to his car; and as soon as he was out of sight Anstice entered his own motor and turned in the direction of Cherry Orchard.

After all, he said to himself as the car glided swiftly over the hard white road, there was no reason why Mrs. Carstairs should find anything suspicious in his inability to visit Cherry Orchard on the previous evening. Doctors were only human after all—prone to the same ills to which other men are subject; and although the exigencies of one of the most exacting professions in the world would seem to inspire a corresponding endurance in its members, there are moments in which even the physician must pause in his ministrations to the world, in order, as it were, to tune up his own bodily frame to meet the demands upon it.

Of course it was possible that Cheniston had divulged to his sister the true reason of Anstice's non-arrival; but Anstice did not think it likely; for although there was, and always must be, a strong antagonism between the two men, Cheniston was an honourable man; and the secret upon which he had stumbled was one which a man of honour would instinctively keep to himself.

That his secret was safe with Iris, Anstice knew beyond any question; and as his car swept up the drive to the jasmine-covered door of Cherry Orchard he told himself that it was only his conscience which made him feel as though his absence on the previous evening must have looked odd, unusual, even—he could not help the word—suspicious.

The door was opened to him by Hagyard, and there was no doubting the sincerity of his welcome.

"Good morning, sir. I was looking out for you.... Miss Cherry's awakened, they say, and is in a sad state."

His unusual loquacity was a proof of his mental disturbance, and Anstice spoke sharply.

"Where is she? Shall I go upstairs?"

"If you please, sir. Here is Tochatti come for you, sir." And he stood aside to allow the woman to approach.

"Will you come this way, signor?" Her foreign accent was more marked than usual; and looking at her worn and sallow countenance Anstice guessed she had not slept.

He followed her without asking any questions, and in another moment was in Cherry's bedroom, the little white and pink room whose wall papers and chintzes were stamped with the life-like bunches of cherries on which he had once remarked admiringly, to the little owner's gratification.

In the small white bed lay Cherry, her head swathed in bandages, one little arm bandaged likewise; and beside her knelt Chloe Carstairs, her face like marble, her silky black hair dishevelled on her brow, as though she, too, had passed a sleepless night. Cherry's brown eyes were widely opened with an expression of half-wondering pain in their usually limpid depths, and from time to time she uttered little moans which sounded doubly piteous coming from so self-controlled a child as she.

"Dr. Anstice—at last!" Chloe rose swiftly from her knees and came to meet him with both hands outstretched. "I thought you were never coming—that Dr. Willows had forgotten to tell you——"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Carstairs." He knew at once, with a relief which would not be repressed, that Cheniston had kept his miserable secret. "I only saw Dr. Willows half an hour ago, and came at once. How is Cherry this morning—did she have any sleep?"

"Yes, thank God." Listening to her low voice, Anstice wondered why he had ever thought her lacking in affection for her child. "Dr. Willows was most kind—he stayed half the night with us and Cherry slept for some hours after he left. But now she is awake, as you see, and I'm afraid she is suffering horribly."

"Let me see what I can do for her, will you?"

He approached the bed and sat down quietly by it, while Cherry ceased for a second to moan, and her brown eyes besought him, more eloquently than speech, to give her relief from this quite unusual state of affairs. At first he was not certain that the child recognized him; but presently her uninjured hand came gropingly towards him; and as he took the tiny fingers in his own Anstice felt a sudden revival of the energies which had seemed so dead, so burnt-out within him on this beautiful September morning.

"Well, Cherry, this is bad luck, isn't it?" He spoke very gently, studying her little face the while. "But don't lose heart—this pain won't last long, it will soon run away. Is it very bad?"

"It's rather bad, thank you, my dear." Even in the midst of her tribulation Cherry strove heroically for her own gracious tone, and the familiar term of endearment sounded strangely pathetic to-day. "But you'll send it quite 'way, won't you?"

"Yes. I send away all pains," returned Anstice, lying nobly. "But first of all you must let me see just what sort of pain this one is, and then I shall know how to get rid of it. You don't mind me touching you, do you?"

"N-not much, my dear." Cherry's lips quivered, and Chloe Carstairs turned away as though unable to bear the sight of her little daughter's suffering any longer.

Quickly and tenderly Anstice made his examination without disturbing more of the dressings than was absolutely necessary; and by dint of questioning Mrs. Carstairs found that the child's brow had been badly scorched where her brown curls had caught fire, and that one little arm had suffered a grievous burn. These were the only outward signs of the accident, but the child had undergone a severe shock; and Anstice felt a sudden misgiving as he looked at the pinched little face, and noted the renewal of the pitiful moans which even Cherry's fortitude could not altogether repress.

The woman Tochatti had hovered in the background while he bent over the bed; and now, at a sign from him, she came forward silently.

"Just look after the child a moment or two, will you?" he said. "Mrs. Carstairs, may I have a word with you? Oh, don't be alarmed—I only want to hear a little more about the affair."

Tochatti shot a quick look at him from her beady black eyes; and Anstice was momentarily puzzled by her curious expression. She looked almost as though she resented his presence—and yet she should have welcomed him, seeing that he was there to do his best for the child she adored. But as she moved to the side of the bed, and took Cherry's unhurt hand in her own brown fingers with a touch of almost maternal tenderness, he told himself impatiently that he was fanciful; and turned to Mrs. Carstairs with a resolute movement.

"Will you come into my room, Dr. Anstice?" Chloe's spacious bedroom led out of her little daughter's pink and white nest; and as Anstice followed her she pulled the door to with a nervous action curiously unlike herself.

"Dr. Anstice, will she die?" Her lips were ashy, and in her white face only the sapphire eyes seemed alive. "If she dies, I will never forgive Tochatti—never!"

"Tochatti?" Anstice was surprised. "Was she to blame for this?"

"Not altogether." Chloe could be just, it seemed, even in the midst of her sorrow. "I will tell you what happened. As perhaps you know, Cherry was to have been one of Iris Wayne's bridesmaids, and at her own request Tochatti had made her dress, a flimsy little thing all muslin and lace. She had spent days over it—she embroiders wonderfully, and when it was done it was perfectly exquisite. She finished it last evening, and Cherry insisted on a dress rehearsal. She was to pay me a surprise visit in the drawing-room just before dinner, and it seems that when she was quite ready Tochatti slipped downstairs to find Hagyard and admit him to a private view, leaving Cherry alone in the room—against all rules—with two candles burning on the dressing-table."

She paused.

"I think I understand," said Anstice quietly. "Cherry took up a candle to get a better view of her pretty frock, and——"

"Not exactly," Chloe interrupted him. "She leaned forward, it seems, in order to look at herself more closely in the glass—you know children are fond of seeing themselves in pretty clothes—and, as you might imagine, she leaned too close to the candle and her sleeve caught fire."

"She cried out?"

"Yes—luckily we all heard her." Through all her marble pallor Chloe flushed at the remembrance of that poignant moment. "We rushed in and found her shrieking, and Tochatti beat out the flames with her hands."

"With her hands? Is she burnt, too, then?"

"Yes—I believe so." Chloe's tone expressed no pity. "She tied up her hand—the left one—herself, and says it is nothing much."

"I see." Privately Anstice determined to investigate the woman's hurt before he left the house. "Well—and what then?"

"When we got the flames under we found that Cherry had fainted, and we telephoned at once for you." She stopped short, taken aback by the strange expression on his face.

"Yes—and I wish to God I'd heard your call!" Anstice bit his lip savagely; and Chloe, uncomprehending but compassionate, hastened on with her story.

"You couldn't help being ill! Iris told me how your maids were all in the Park watching the fireworks—and then when my brother and Iris came down you were too ill to come. Are you better now?"

"So they went for Willows and brought him back with them?" He disregarded her question—possibly did not hear it.

"Yes, and as I have told you he was most kind. But of course Cherry did not know him, and she kept on crying for you——"

Chloe, who had intended the last words kindly, thinking to please him by this proof of the child's affection for him, was aghast at the result of her speech.

"Mrs. Carstairs, for God's sake don't tell me that!" Anstice's voice almost frightened her, so bitter, so full of remorse was it. "It only wanted that to make the horror complete—the knowledge that I failed a little child in her need!"

"The horror?" She stared at him. "I don't understand."

"No, and there's no reason why you should." With a great effort he resumed his ordinary tone. "Mrs. Carstairs, forgive me. I ... as you know—I was—ill—last night, and I'm not quite myself this morning. But"—he turned the subject resolutely—"what I want to say is this. Cherry will need very careful nursing for some days, and I think it will be well for me to send you a nurse."

Chloe received the suggestion rather dubiously.

"Do you think it is really necessary?" she said at length. "I'm as strong as a horse, and as for Tochatti, I'm afraid she wouldn't like to feel herself superseded. She is devoted to Cherry, you know, and she is a very jealous woman."

"Yes," he said, "but even although you and Tochatti are ready to give yourselves up to the child, in a case of this sort skill is wanted as well as affection." He smiled to soften the harshness of his words, and Chloe inconsequently thought that he looked very weary this morning.

"Of course, and if we don't prove competent you are at liberty to send us a nurse. But"—she spoke rather wistfully—"mayn't we try, Tochatti and I? I would a thousand times sooner nurse Cherry myself than let a stranger be with her."

Touched by something in her voice, remembering also the peculiar position in which this woman stood—a wife without a husband, with no one in the world, apparently, to care for her save her child—Anstice yielded the point for the moment.

"Very well, then. We will try this arrangement first, and if Cherry goes on well there will be no need to call in other help. Now I should like to see Tochatti, and give you both instructions."

Without a word Chloe led him back to the smaller bedroom where Cherry lay uneasily dozing; and Anstice beckoned to Tochatti to approach the window.

She came forward rather sullenly; and Anstice, irritated by her manner, spoke in rather a peremptory tone.

"Let me see your hands, please. I understand you were burnt last night."

Unwillingly the woman held out her left hand, which was wrapped round with a roughly constructed bandage; and as Anstice took it and began to unwind the folds he heard her draw in her breath with an odd little hiss.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked, surprised, and the woman answered stolidly.

"No, thank you, sir. You did not hurt me at all."

Her manner struck him as peculiar; it almost seemed as though she resented his efforts on her behalf; and as he unwrapped the last of the bandage Anstice told himself she was by no means an attractive patient.

But when he saw her hand he forgave her all her peculiarities; for she must have suffered untold pain during the hours which had elapsed since the accident.

"I say—why didn't you show your hand to the doctor last night?" He spoke impetuously, really shocked to see the extent of her burns. "You have given yourself a lot of unnecessary pain, and it will take much longer to heal. You must let me dress the place at once."

Assisted by Chloe, who fetched and carried for him deftly, he dressed and bound up the burnt hand; and though the woman never flinched, there was a look in her eyes which showed him she was enduring great pain.

"There." He finished his work and looked at her closely. "That will feel easier soon. But you know you should lie down and try to sleep for an hour or two—and that hand will be quite useless for some days. Really, Mrs. Carstairs"—he turned to Chloe—"I think you will have to let me send for a nurse, after all. You can't do everything, and Tochatti is more or less disabled——"

He was surprised by the effect of his words. Tochatti turned to her mistress eagerly, and began pouring out a stream of Italian which was quite incomprehensible to Anstice, who was no better at modern languages than the average public school and University product. And Chloe replied in the same tongue, though without the wealth of gesture employed by the other woman; while Anstice waited, silently, until the colloquy was concluded.

Finally Chloe turned, apologetically, to him and explained the subject of the woman's entreaties.

"Tochatti is so terribly upset at the idea of a strange woman coming to nurse Cherry that I have promised to try to persuade you to reverse your verdict," she said. "Do you mind? Of course if we can't manage you must do as you think fit—but——"

"We will try, by all means." In spite of himself, he was touched by the woman's fierce devotion to her charge. "And now I'll tell you exactly what I want you to do until I come again this afternoon."

He proceeded to give them full instructions how to look after the child, and when he had assured himself that they understood exactly what was to be done, he took his leave, promising to call again in the course of a few hours.

As he drove away he mused for a moment on the Italian woman's peculiar manner towards him.

"Seems as if she hated me to speak to her ... she's never been like that before—indeed, when Cherry broke her arm she used to welcome me quite demonstratively." He smiled, then grew grave again. "Of course the woman was in pain to-day—she was a queer colour, too—looked downright ill. I expect the affair has been a shock to her as well as to the child."

And with that conclusion he dismissed Tochatti from his mind for the time being, his thoughts reverting to the one subject which filled his mental horizon to-day.

* * * * *

All through the bright September afternoon he sat alone in his rarely-used drawing-room. The consulting-room was haunted ground to him since the episode of the previous evening, and he could not bear to go out into the village lest he might perhaps behold some signs of the great event which was agitating peaceful Littlefield to-day.

But his imagination, unmercifully awakened from the stupor which had temporarily lulled it to repose, showed him many visions on that golden September afternoon.

He saw the old grey church decked with flowers, saw the sunlight filtering through the famous Burne-Jones window in a splash of gorgeous blue and crimson, staining the white petals of the big lilies in the chancel ... he heard the peals of the organ as the choristers broke out into the hymn which heralded the bride ... saw the bride herself, a little pale, a little serious, in her white robes, in her eyes the grave and tender look whose possibility he had long ago divined....

Oh, he was a fool to let his imagination torment him so ... and he sprang to his feet, determined to put an end to these maddening visions which only unfitted him for the stern and hopeless battle which was all that he could look forward to henceforth....

As he moved impatiently towards the door a sudden peal of bells rang out gaily, exultantly on the soft and balmy air; and his face turned grey as he realized that this was the signal which betokened that Iris was now the wife of Bruce Cheniston, his to have and to hold, irrevocably his until death should intervene to end their dual existence....

* * * * *

With a muttered oath he strode out of the house, and making his way round to the garage ordered his car to be brought forth immediately.

When it came he flung himself into the steering seat and drove away at such a pace that Andrews, his outdoor man and general factotum, looked after him anxiously.

"Looks like getting his licence endorsed," he observed to the pretty housemaid, Alice, who was watching her master's departure from a convenient window. "Never saw him drive so reckless—he's generally what you might call a very considerate driver."

"Considerate? What of?" asked Alice ungrammatically. "The dogs and chickens in the road, d'you mean?"

"Dogs and chickens! Good Lord, no!" Andrews was a born mechanician, and it was a constant source of regret to him that Anstice generally drove the car himself. "They're nothing but a nuisance anyway. No, I meant he considered the car—but he don't look much like it to-day."

"Oh, the car!" Alice was openly scornful. "Well, from the pace he went off just now, I should think he'll smash up your precious old car before he goes far. And no loss either," said Alice, who was engaged to a soldier in a cavalry regiment, and therefore disdained all purely mechanical means of locomotion.

* * * * *

But once out on the road Anstice moderated his pace somewhat, since to run over an unwary pedestrian would only add to the general hopelessness of the situation; and he reached Cherry Orchard without any such mishap as his servants had prophesied for him.

Here he found things less satisfactory than he had hoped. Cherry was no better; indeed, to his experienced eye, the child was worse, and although Mrs. Carstairs showed no signs of fatigue, and was apparently prepared to nurse her little daughter indefinitely, it was evident that the woman Tochatti was worn out with pain, anxiety, and, possibly, remorse.

Although she pulled herself together sufficiently to answer Anstice's questions intelligibly, it was plain to see that she was in reality half dazed by the shock she had experienced and by want of sleep, and Anstice realized that if Cherry were to be properly nursed some other help must be obtained at once.

"See here, Mrs. Carstairs." His face was grave as he examined the child's condition. "I'm not going to beat about the bush—I'm going to send you a nurse to help you with Cherry."

"A nurse? But—can't Tochatti and I——?"

"You're all right," he said shortly. "You look good for any amount of nursing, though I can't imagine how you do it, seeing you had no sleep last night. But Tochatti is no use at present." He judged it best to speak frankly. "It is evident she is in pain with that hand of hers, and she will be fit for nothing to-night, at any rate."

Chloe did not contest the point further.

"Very well, Dr. Anstice. You know best; and if you think it necessary, will you find us someone at once?"

"Yes. I think I know just the person for you." He turned to Tochatti, who was standing by, her face full of smouldering resentment. "I'm sure you want me to do the best thing for Miss Cherry, don't you?"

She did not answer; and he repeated his question rather sharply.

This time she answered him.

"Si, signor." She spoke sulkily, and a flash of something like actual hatred shot from her black eyes as he watched her; but he had no time to spare for her vagaries, and turned back to Chloe Carstairs forthwith.

"Then I will try to find Nurse Trevor and bring her along. She will sit up to-night, and then you can both get some rest." He spoke kindly, including Tochatti in his smile; but the woman merely glowered, and he felt a spasm of sudden annoyance at her ungracious behaviour.

* * * * *

Luckily Nurse Trevor was at hand and disengaged; and Anstice had the satisfaction of finding her safely installed and apparently completely at home in her new surroundings when he paid his last visit to Cherry Orchard late that night.

She was a pretty girl of twenty-seven, who had had a good deal of experience in nursing children, and although poor little Cherry was by this time too ill to pay much attention to any of the people around her, it really seemed as though Margaret Trevor's soft voice, with its cooing, dove-like notes, had a soothing influence on the suffering child.

Anstice stayed some time in Cherry's room, doing all his skill could suggest for the alleviation of his little patient's pain, and when at length he took his departure Chloe herself came downstairs with him.

"What a lovely night!" She had opened the big hall door quietly while he sought his hat. "The moon must be nearly at the full, I think."

Together they stood on the steps looking out over the dew-drenched garden. The white stars of the jasmine which clustered thickly round the house sent out a delicious fragrance, and there were a dozen other scents on the soft and balmy air, as though the sleeping stocks and carnations and mignonette breathed sweetly in their sleep.

A big white owl flow, hooting, across the path, and Chloe shivered.

"I hate owls—I always think them unlucky, harbingers of evil," she said, and her face, as she spoke, was quite pale.

In an ordinary way Anstice would have deemed it his duty to scoff at such superstition; but to-night, his nerves unstrung, by the happenings of the last few days, his bodily vigour at a low ebb, his mind a chaos of miserable, hopeless memories and fears, Chloe's words woke a quite unexpected response in his soul.

"Don't say that, Mrs. Carstairs!" He spoke sharply. "Don't let us talk of bad luck—to-night of all nights!"

In the moonlight her narrow blue eyes studied his face with sudden keenness, and she felt an unusual desire to bring comfort to the soul which she felt with instinctive certainty stood in need of some help.

As a rule Chloe Carstairs, like Anstice himself, was too much preoccupied with the thought of her own private grudge against fate to have any sympathy to spare for others who might have known that Deity's frown; but to-night, owing possibly to some softening of her mental fibres induced by the sight of her child's suffering, she felt oddly pitiful towards this man, and her inward emotion found vent in words which surprised her as much as they startled the man to whom they were addressed.

"Why to-night, Dr. Anstice? Has this day been to you what it has been to me—a day of the bitterest suffering I have ever known?"

The tone of her deep voice, so oddly gentle, the compassionate expression in her usually cold blue eyes, were too much for Anstice, whose endurance was nearly at the breaking point; and he turned to her with a look in his face which dismayed her, so tragic was it.

"Mrs. Carstairs, this day I have been in—hell!" The word sounded cruelly out of place in the quiet moonlit night. "Once before I fancied I had reached the point at which a man may turn his back on life and its horrors without thinking himself a pitiful coward. I suffered then—my God, how I suffered!—but the torture I have endured to-day makes me feel as though I have never known what suffering is until now."

Her answer came quickly.

"But you know now that no man can turn his back on life and yet escape the allegation of cowardice!" It was an assertion rather than a question. "Dr. Anstice, I don't ask to know what your suffering has been—I don't want you to tell me—but one thing I do know, that you, and men like you, are not the ones who give up the battle when the fight is fiercest."

He delayed his answer so long that Chloe had time to feel curiously frightened by his silence. And when his reply came it was hardly reassuring.

"I thought you were too wise a woman to indulge in generalities, Mrs. Carstairs." His tired voice robbed the words of offence. "And don't you know that it is never safe to prophesy what a man will do in a battle? The bravest may turn coward beneath a hail of fire—the man who is afraid may perform some deed which will entitle him—and rightly—to the coveted Victoria Cross."

"Yes." She spoke steadily, her eyes on his face. "But that's the battlefield of the world, Dr. Anstice, the material, earthly battlefield. It's the battlefield of the soul I was thinking of just now; and if I may use a quotation which has been battered out of nearly all its original fine shape by careless usage, to me the truly brave man is he who remains to the end the—'captain of his soul!'"

Her voice sank on the last words; but Anstice had caught her meaning, and he turned to her with a new light in his tired eyes.

"Mrs. Carstairs, thank you for what you've just said. Captain of his soul—yes, I've heard it often enough, but never stopped to ponder its meaning. And as the captain mustn't lose his ship if mortal man can prevent the loss, so a man must bring the ship of his soul safely into port. Is that what you meant just now?"

She smiled faintly in the moonlight, and for once there was no mockery in her smile.

"We have wandered from our original metaphor of a battlefield," she said gently, "but I like your simile of a ship better. Yes, I suppose that is what I was trying to convey—in a confused fashion, I'm afraid. We each have our voyage to complete, our ship to bring into harbour; and even though sometimes it seems about to founder"—he knew she alluded to the catastrophe of her own life—"we must not let it sink if we can keep it afloat."

For a moment there was silence between them; and again they heard the melancholy hoot of the owl, flying homewards now.

Then Anstice said slowly:

"You are right, of course. But"—at last his pent-up bitterness burst its bounds and overflowed in quick, vehement speech—"it's easy enough for a man to handle his ship carefully when he has some precious thing on board—or even when he knows some welcoming voice will greet him as he enters—at last—into his haven. But the man whose ship is empty, who has no right to expect even one greeting word—is there no excuse for him if he navigate the seas carelessly?"

"No." In the moonlight she faced him, and her eyes looked oddly luminous. "For a derelict's the greatest danger a boat can encounter on the high seas ... all our boats cross and recross the paths of others, you know, and no man has the right to place another's ship in peril by his own—carelessness."

"By God, you're right," he said vehemently; and she did not resent his hasty speech. "Mrs. Carstairs, you've done more for me to-night than you know—and if I can repay you I will, though it cost me all I have in the world."

"You can repay me very easily," she said, holding out her hand, all the motherhood in her coming to the surface. "Save Cherry—she is all I have—now—in the world; and her little barque, at least, was meant to dance over summer seas."

"God helping me, I will save her," he said, taking her hand in a quick, earnest clasp; and then he entered his waiting car and drove away without another word, a new courage in his heart.

* * * * *

And as Chloe gently closed the heavy door on the peaceful, fragrant world without and returned to the little room where Cherry lay in an uneasy slumber, she knew that a faint suspicion which had crossed her mind earlier in the summer had been verified to-night.

"He too loved Iris," she said to herself, with a rather sad little smile. "And I thought—once—that she was ready to love him in return. But, I suppose she preferred Bruce. Only"—Chloe had no illusions on the subject of her brother—"I believe Dr. Anstice would have made her a happier woman than Bruce will ever be able to do. And if he"—she did not refer to Cheniston now—"has lost his chance of happiness to-day, no wonder he feels that he has been in hell. For there is no hell so terrible as the one in which a soul who loves wanders alone, without its beloved," said the woman whose husband had left her because of a cruel doubt. "From the bottom of my heart I pity that man to-night!"

And then, re-entering Cherry's little room, pathetic now in its very brightness of colouring, Chloe forgot all else in the world save the child who slept, in the narrow bed, watched by Margaret Trevor's soft, brooding eyes.



BOOK II



CHAPTER I

On a cold and frosty morning in November Anstice was sitting over his solitary breakfast when the telephone-bell rang; and he left his coffee to grow cold while he answered the summons.

It was Sir Richard who was speaking; and even over the wire Anstice thought he detected an unusual note in the older man's voice.

"That you, Anstice? Are you busy, or can you spare me a few minutes this morning?"

"I'll come to Greengates, of course, if you want me, Sir Richard," said Anstice immediately. "But I hope you are not ill—nor Lady Laura?"

"No, my sister's all right—so am I." There was a pause. "But I—well, I'm rather worried, and I want to see you."

"Very well, sir. I'll be round at eleven. Will that suit you?"

"Yes, eleven will do well. Au revoir till then," and Sir Richard rang off with a promptitude which forbade further discussion for the moment.

As he went back to his cooling coffee Anstice wondered vaguely what Sir Richard could have to say; but since speculation was mere idle waste of time he dismissed the matter from his mind and finished his breakfast in haste.

It was nearly noon when he drove his car up to the great hall door of Greengates; but the words of apology for his tardy arrival died on his lips when he caught sight of Sir Richard's face.

"I say, I'm afraid you're ill, after all!" Anstice was genuinely concerned; and Sir Richard's strained features relaxed into a smile.

"No, I'm perfectly well. Only, as I told you, I have been upset this morning; and—well, I'll explain and you will see there is something to worry about."

Without more ado he walked over to his substantial roll-top desk, and unlocking a drawer took from thence an envelope which he handled gingerly as though it were unpleasing to him.

From the envelope he drew a sheet of thin paper; and Anstice, watching him closely, felt still more mystified by his distasteful expression.

For a moment Sir Richard hesitated, still holding the sheet by the tips of his fingers. Then, as though he had taken a sudden resolve, he turned to Anstice abruptly.

"Look here, Anstice, this abominable thing reached me this morning. Now of course I don't need you to tell me that the proper place for it is the fire, and if it had not been for one circumstance connected with it, it would have been in the flames by now. But as things are"—he broke off suddenly and held the thin sheet out to the other man—"well, read it, and then tell me what you think is the best course to pursue."

With a premonition of evil for which he could not account, Anstice took the paper from Sir Richard and, turning to the window so that the pale autumn sunlight might fall upon the letter, he read the few lines scrawled in the middle of the sheet.

"Dr. Anstice is a murderer he killed a woman in India by shooting her because she was in the way when he wanted to escape."

That was all. There was no heading, no signature, not even the cynical assurance of well-wishing which is the hall-mark, so to speak, of the typical anonymous letter; and as Anstice read the ill-written words his first sensation was of wonder as to who his secret enemy might be.

When he had finished he turned the sheet over in his hands to see if perchance the writer might have more to say; but the other side of the paper was blank; and he looked at Sir Richard with an expression of utter bewilderment.

"Well?" Sir Richard interrogated him with interest. "Pretty sort of document, eh? I suppose the writing conveys nothing to your mind?"

"Nothing at all." Holding the paper to the light, Anstice examined the ill-formed characters more closely. "It does not resemble any handwriting I know. But I suppose"—he smiled rather grimly—"the test of a successful anonymous correspondent is to disguise his writing efficiently."

"Yes." Sir Richard stretched out his hand for the paper and Anstice yielded it to him without regret. "Well, it is pretty evident that someone has—to put it vulgarly—got his knife into you. The question is, who can it be?"

"Well, it's a question I'm not clever enough to answer," returned Anstice, with assumed lightness. "All men have enemies, I suppose, and I won't swear I've never made any in my life. But I can't at the moment recall one who would stoop to fight with such dirty weapons as these."

"Dirty—that's just the word for it," said Sir Richard disgustedly. "But you know, Anstice, this sort of thing can't be allowed to go on. For your own sake, and for the sake of others"—he paused, then repeated himself deliberately—"for the sake of others it must be stopped—at once."

"I quite agree with you that it must be stopped," said Anstice slowly, "though I hardly see how the matter affects anyone except myself. Of course"—he looked Sir Richard squarely in the face as he spoke—"it is no use denying there is a certain amount of truth in this accusation against me. I wonder if you have the patience to listen to a story—the story of a great mistake made, unfortunately, by me some years ago."

For a moment Sir Richard seemed about to speak; yet no word crossed his lips. Then he said, with a very kindly inflection in his voice:

"Don't trouble to tell me the story, Anstice. I think I know it already."

"You do?" Anstice stared at him. "But who told it to you? Was it—Cheniston?"

"No, no." Sir Richard spoke hurriedly. "Cheniston never mentioned the affair to me. As a matter of fact I heard it, at the time, from his uncle, a contemporary of mine; but I confess I did not, at first, associate you with the man who was brave enough—and unfortunate enough—to carry out that poor girl's wish——"

"On my honour, sir, I could not have done anything else." Anstice's voice was full of pain, and Sir Richard put his hand kindly on the younger man's shoulder.

"Of course you couldn't—no one but a fool could imagine that for a moment! But as I say, at first I did not connect your name with that of the hero of the story. It was only on seeing you and Cheniston together on one or two occasions that I guessed you might, after all, be the man."

"Yes—to my everlasting remorse I am the man," said Anstice rather bitterly. "But since you know the facts of the case, and yet are good enough to welcome me to your house, I gather this wretched letter carried no weight with you, Sir Richard. And if that is so, why not tear it up, and make an end of the thing?"

"Wait a moment, Anstice. As you say, I know the facts of the case and even if I were ignorant of them this contemptible canard"—he flicked the paper angrily—"wouldn't rouse my curiosity to the extent of setting me searching for some crime in your past." He smiled, but the smile cost him an effort. "But you see the mischief may not rest here. It is quite possible other people may have been—victimized—by this morning's post."

"By Jove, I hadn't thought of that." Anstice stood biting his lip and staring thoughtfully ahead of him; and the old man watched the thin, fine-drawn face with a regard which was full of anxiety. "Naturally a story of this sort is not calculated to enhance one's popularity; and one's patients might quite well look askance at a doctor who was reputed to be a murderer!"

He paused; then threw back his head impetuously.

"After all, if they are weak-minded enough to believe an anonymous statement, they aren't worth bothering with. As it is, I've been thinking for some time that I've had enough of general practice. I never intended to go in for it, you know; and if I had a quiet year or two for research——"

He broke off suddenly, for Sir Richard had raised his hand almost entreatingly.

"Anstice, don't speak of giving up your practice here—not at this juncture, anyway. You see this vile story may spread; and to quit Littlefield now would look almost like"—he hesitated—"like cowardice."

For a second Anstice stared at him, a flash of anger on his brow. Then, as though dismayed by the effect of his words, Sir Richard spoke again.

"Besides, there is another aspect of the matter which has evidently not yet struck you. It is very natural for you to look on this letter as a loathsome, but quite unimportant, act of spite, on the part of some secret enemy; and I understand your desire to assume that it does not matter in the least. But"—his eyes sought the younger man's face anxiously—"there is another person in this neighbourhood who might be affected by a fresh flood of anonymous communications. You know to whom I refer?"

Suddenly Anstice saw, with a most unwelcome clarity of vision, what Sir Richard intended to convey; and his eyes grew hard as he replied:

"You mean——"

"I mean that once again that unfortunate girl at Cherry Orchard might be suspected of having recourse to this most degrading, most underhand form of crime. And for her sake the matter must not be allowed to rest here."

"Sir Richard"—Anstice came a step nearer his host, and Sir Richard heard, with satisfaction, the ring of steel in his voice—"you are right. I did not see, at first, how peculiarly fatal this coincidence might be. I mean that should these letters, as you suggest, be circulated through the district, the old scandal would be revived. And though no sane person could ever believe Mrs. Carstairs guilty of such a vile action, I suppose there are a good many lunatics about who would put these atrocious things down to her."

"Well, you know what people are," said Sir Richard deprecatingly, "and naturally a woman who has once been convicted, by whatever unfair means, of the same offence, is liable to be looked on with suspicion. And I shouldn't like"—for a second Sir Richard, who loved Chloe Carstairs as though she had been his daughter, faltered, and cleared his throat rather huskily—"I shouldn't like that poor, pretty creature over yonder to suffer any further indignity."

"Of course not!" Anstice's eyes flashed, and he pulled himself together resolutely. "And if I can help it, she shan't suffer! Just look here, Sir Richard, the first thing to do is to find out if anyone else has been, as you say, victimized."

"Yes." Sir Richard spoke rather dubiously. "And it will be rather hard to find out that, I fear. You see, naturally a decent man wouldn't spread the fact abroad; and we can hardly go about making open inquiries."

"I suppose not." For a second Anstice was nonplussed, then his face cleared. "But after all, if anyone—one of my patients, for instance, has received one of these charming letters, don't you think I shall find it out? You see, although the average 'decent man,' as you call him, holds firmly to the theory that the place for an anonymous communication is the fire, I'm afraid nine out of ten people can't help wondering, even while they burn it, how much truth there was in the accusation!"

"Just so—but even then——"

"Well, something of that rather uncomfortable wonder, not to say suspicion, is pretty sure to show itself in the manner of the man who's read the letter. Seriously, Sir Richard, if anyone beside yourself has received a testimonial to my character" He spoke ironically now—"I'll guarantee to discover the fact in the course of ten minutes' conversation with him!"

"You may be right, Anstice." Sir Richard did not speak with much conviction. "But for all our sakes I wish we could make certain of the facts either way. You see, should this lie be circulated through the district by means of letters or postcards it is inevitable that the old scandal should be raked up. And in that case Mrs. Carstairs will suffer."

A thought struck Anstice suddenly and he gave it utterance forthwith.

"Sir Richard, I suppose you don't remember whether the handwriting in any of those other letters resembled this in any way? It is not likely, so long afterwards, but still——"

Sir Richard uttered an impatient exclamation.

"By Gad, what an old fool I am! I've got one of the original letters locked away in that desk now—one of the half-dozen or so which reached me when the scandal was at its height. I don't know why I kept it—God knows I hated the sight of it—but somehow I could never bring myself to destroy the thing, hoping against hope that it might some day afford a clue to the identity of the writer."

He busied himself with a bunch of keys for a moment, and finally selected one, with which he unlocked a small drawer at the back of his desk. At first his eagerness prevented him finding what he sought, but presently he brought to light another and rather worn sheet of paper, which he handed to Anstice triumphantly.

"Yes, read it, read it!" He had marked Anstice's hesitation. "The affair's been public property too long for any secrecy now. And that, after all, was a fairly innocuous screed."

Thus encouraged, Anstice ran his eye over the sheet of paper, and there read a veiled, but none the less malignant, attack on the character of Mrs. Ogden, the wife of the man who had held the living of Littlefield at the time the letter was written. In his anxiety to compare the handwriting of the two epistles Anstice barely stopped to take in the meaning of what he read; and when, in answer to his request, Sir Richard handed him the second letter he carried them both eagerly to the window and examined them carefully in the stronger light.

"Well?" Sir Richard's tone was full of sympathetic interest.

"One moment—I've got a pocket magnifying glass somewhere." He put the letters down and plunged his hand into various pockets in eager search. "Ah—here it is—and we'll jolly soon see if the game hand has been at work in both."

Watching him as he pored over the two papers Sir Richard told himself that with this man for her champion Chloe Carstairs need not fear further condemnation at the hands of a censorious or jealous world. He knew instinctively that what made Anstice so suddenly keen on discovering the authorship of the letters was not a selfish desire to rid himself of the annoyance such letters might bring upon him, but rather a determination to prove Chloe Carstairs innocent in the first instance by bringing home the guilt for both letters—or series of letters—to the right quarter.

Sir Richard made no mistake in his estimation of Anstice's chivalrous desire to right the wrong which had been done to Mrs. Carstairs. He knew quite well that to Anstice the righting of the wrong appeared in the light of a duty to the woman whom he called his friend; and that no warmer emotion animated him in regard to Chloe Carstairs than that same chivalry.

For Iris' father had not been blind to the significance of the events of the summer. Although Anstice had never betrayed his secret by word or look the other man had all along had a suspicion that Cheniston was not alone in his love for his pretty daughter; and although naturally he was ignorant of the compact entered into by the two younger men he had sometimes wondered, with just the least possible tinge of regret, why Anstice had apparently been content to leave the field to his rival.

Although he admitted to himself that he had absolutely no grounds for believing that Anstice had been in love with Iris he could never rid himself of the notion; and in any case he felt quite certain that Anstice had no warmer feeling for Mrs. Carstairs than a very genuine and chivalrous friendliness.

Watching the younger man as he stood with bent head examining the papers Sir Richard was struck by the change in Anstice's face during the last few months. Always thin, it was now positively haggard, and the black hair which clustered round his brow was touched, here and there, with grey. Yet the effect was not one of age. He could hardly be said to look older than his years; but there was a look of something more painful than a premature ageing would have been—a look of suffering, of bitter experience impatiently borne, of a mental conflict which had drawn lines round the fine lips, and given an air of hopeless weariness to the deep-set eyes.

And Sir Richard, watching, wondered again—this time uneasily—whether the marriage of his beloved little daughter to Bruce Cheniston had proved yet another trouble for this man's already burdened spirit to bear.

Sir Richard had, of course, no idea of the remorse with which Anstice remembered that terrible scene on the eve of Iris' wedding day, when Cheniston and the girl he was to marry on the morrow had come to him for help; and had found him in no fit state to render aid to any human being.

That fact alone, the fact that, as he had said bitterly to Chloe Carstairs, he had failed a child in her need, would have been sufficient to fill Anstice with a very real and deep regret for his own most lamentable failure; but added to that was the other and still more deplorable fact that it had been Iris Wayne who had seen his condition; and although she had uttered no word of reproach he told himself hopelessly that now he must have fallen very low in her estimation. And the idea that Iris must scorn him in her heart, however charitably she might strive to think of him, was a terrible one to the man who had fought so heroically for her sake to overcome his weakness, and had failed only when it had seemed to him that his failure—now—could mean nothing to the girl he loved.

* * * * *

As Sir Richard watched him, rather uneasily, Anstice turned to him suddenly.

"I say, Sir Richard, I'm pretty sure these letters are both written by one hand! Look, these two 'a's are identical, and the capital 'D' is absolutely similar in both."

Oddly thrilled, Sir Richard bent over the papers; and saw that Anstice had spoken the obvious truth.

"By Gad, Anstice, you're right!" For a moment he did not know whether to be disturbed or relieved by the discovery. "It looks uncommonly as though the same hand were at work again; and in that case——"

"In that case the mischief-maker shall be brought to book." A new look of resolution drove away the weary lines from the speaker's face. "I hope with all my heart it is the same person who's at the old game—and I'll find out who it is if it costs me every penny I've got!"

"Quite right, quite the right spirit," said Sir Richard, watching him keenly the while. "It's damnably unfair that a story of that sort should be circulated about you—and the blackguard who's responsible deserves a heavy punishment for the lie."

In an instant the vivacity died out of Anstice's face; and again its hopeless expression struck Sir Richard with a sense of pain.

"Of course the thing is not exactly a lie," he said. "I mean, I did act too hastily, though God knows I did it for the best. But if the whole story is to be raked up again—by Jove, I believe after all it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie!"

"You forget—this is not the first letter which has fallen like a bombshell into Littlefield," Sir Richard reminded him quietly; and Anstice flushed a dull red.

"Of course not ... what a fool I am! Thinking of the past, of that horrible morning, I forgot Mrs. Carstairs. But"—he squared his shoulders aggressively—"I shall not forgot again. This thing is going to be sifted now, and the mystery solved. May I take these letters with me?"

"Certainly." Sir Richard felt Anstice had the better right to the documents. "You will take care of them, of course; and if you follow my advice you will not show them to anyone—yet."

"Quite so." Anstice put the two letters carefully away in his pocket-book. "Now I must go, Sir Richard; but please believe I am grateful for your kindness in this matter."

He shook hands with Sir Richard, and hurried away to his waiting car; and as he drove from the house his lips were firmly set together, and the look in his eyes betokened no good to the wretched creature who had penned this latest communication.

And Sir Richard, watching him from a side window, felt a sharp pang of regret that this man, whom he liked and trusted, had not managed, apparently, to win his daughter's affection.

"Damme if I wouldn't rather have had him for a son-in-law than the other," he said to himself presently. "Cheniston's a decent fellow enough, brainy and a thoroughly steady sort of chap, but there is something about this man that I rather admire. It may be his pluck, or his quiet tenacity of purpose—I'm hanged if I know what it is; but on my soul I'm inclined to wish I'd been called upon to give my little girl into his keeping. As for that affair in India, it's not every man who would have had the pluck to shoot the girl, and precious few men would have lived it down as he has done. I believe I'd have put a bullet through my brain if it had been me," said Sir Richard honestly, "but I can quite realize that it's a long sight finer to see the thing through. And if there's to be fresh trouble over these confounded anonymous scrawls, well, I'll stick to the fellow through thick and thin!"

And with this meritorious resolve Sir Richard went back to his comfortable fire and the paper which he had not, as yet, had the heart to peruse.



CHAPTER II

On the day following Sir Richard's interview with Anstice the latter received an unexpected call from the Vicar of Littlefield parish.

The two men were on fairly intimate terms. For the clergyman, as a scholar and a gentleman, Anstice had a real respect, though the religious side of Mr. Carey's office, as expressed in his spiritual ministrations, could hardly be expected to appeal to the man who could never rid himself of the feeling that God had deliberately failed him at a critical moment.

Mr. Carey, on his side, had a genuine liking for Anstice, whose skill he admired with the impersonal admiration which a specialist in one profession accords to an expert in another vocation. But mingled with his admiration was an uneasy suspicion that all was not well with the spiritual health of this most indifferent of his parishioners, and he was grieved, with the charity of a large and generous nature, by the gloom, the melancholy, which at times were written only too plainly on the other's face.

The two men were brought into contact now and again by the very nature of their respective callings. Soul and body are after all so closely related that the health of the one depends largely on that of the other; and at times both priest and physician must take their share in the gracious task of healing. And on the occasions when their work brought them together the mutual liking and respect between the two was sensibly strengthened.

So that it did not cause Anstice more than a passing sensation of surprise when on this cold and raw November evening the Reverend Fraser Carey was announced as a visitor.

"Mr. Carey here? Where have you taken him, Alice?"

"Into the drawing-room, sir. The fire's not lighted, but I can put a match to it in a moment."

"No, don't do that." Anstice hated the little-used drawing-room. "Take Mr. Carey into my room, and bring up some coffee directly, will you?"

"Yes, sir." The maid, who in common with the rest of the household regarded Anstice with an admiration not unmixed with awe, withdrew to carry out her instructions; and hastily finishing an important letter, Anstice went in search of his rare visitor.

"Hallo, Carey—jolly good of you to look me up on a beastly night like this." He poked the fire into a brighter blaze, and drew forward a capacious leather chair. "Sit down and light up. We'll have some coffee presently—I know you don't care for anything stronger."

"Thanks, Anstice." Mr. Carey sank down into the big chair and held his transparent-looking hands to the flames. "It is a bad night, as you say, and this fire is uncommonly cosy."

Fraser Carey was a man of middle age who, through constitutional delicacy, looked older than his years. His features, well-cut in themselves, were marred by the excessive thinness and pallor of his face; and his eyes, beneath their heavy lids, told a story of unrestful nights spent in wrestling with some mental or physical pain which forbade the refreshment of sleep. He had never consulted Anstice professionally, though he had called upon his services on behalf of a little niece who sometimes visited him; and Anstice wondered now and then what scruple it was which prevented his friend making use of such skill as he might reasonably claim to possess.

To-night Carey looked even more tired, more fragile than ever; and Anstice refrained from speech until he had poured out two cups of deliciously fragrant coffee and had seen that Carey's pipe was in full blast.

Then: "It is quite a time since you dropped in for a chat," he said cheerfully. "Yet this isn't a specially busy season of the year for you parsons, is it? We are run off our legs with influenza and all the rest of it, thanks to the weather, but you——"

"We parsons are generally busy, you know," returned Carey with a smile. "Human nature being what it is there is no close-time for sin—nor for goodness either, God be thanked," he added hastily.

"I suppose not." Having satisfactorily loaded his pipe Anstice lay back and puffed luxuriously. "In any case I'm glad you've found time to drop in. By the way, there is a woman down in Blue Row about whom I wanted to see you. I think you know the family—the man is a blacksmith, Richards by name."

He outlined the needs of the case, and Carey took a few notes in the little book he carried for the purpose. After that the conversation ranged desultorily over various local matters mildly interesting to both; and then there fell a sudden pause which Anstice at least felt to be significant.

It was broken, abruptly, by the clergyman, who sat upright in his chair, and, laying his empty pipe down on the table, turned to face his host more fully.

"Anstice." His thin, rather musical voice held a new and arresting note. "My visit to you to-night was not of, a purely social nature. I came because—I may have been wrong—because I felt it to be both an obligation and an act of friendship to come here to discuss with you a peculiar situation which has arisen within the last day or two in Littlefield."

Instantly Anstice guessed what was to follow; and he knocked the ashes out of his pipe with a rather impatient gesture which was not lost on the other man.

"If you will listen to me for one moment," said Carey hastily, "you may then refuse to discuss the subject if you wish. But I think it will really be better if you can bring yourself to listen to me first."

Even Anstice's annoyance was not proof against the other man's moderation; and he spoke with creditable mildness.

"I think I know what you want to say, Carey. Is it—this interesting subject—concerned with certain statements which are being made about me—anonymously—in the parish?"

Carey's face lost a little of its uneasiness.

"Yes," he said, "since you appear to be already acquainted with the fact there is no use in denying it. Indeed, I don't wish to do so, seeing that is what I came to say to you."

"You have received such a letter yourself?"

"Yes. I received a letter this morning."

"I see." For a moment Anstice sat in silence, his lips set firmly together; and the other man, watching, was struck, as Sir Richard had been on the previous day, by the look of suffering in his face. "Well, Carey, is it asking you too much to let me know exactly what form the accusation against me took? Or have you the letter with you?"

"No. I burnt the letter immediately," Carey answered. "Naturally such communications are best destroyed—and forgotten—at once. But"—he hesitated—"the fact is I have since discovered that I am not the only person to be addressed by the unknown correspondent."

"Indeed?" Anstice's eyes flashed. "Is it permissible to ask who else has been thus—honoured?"

The clergyman paused a moment before replying, and it was evident a conflict was taking place in his mind. The struggle was, however, soon terminated, and he answered Anstice's question resolutely.

"Yes, it is quite permissible. Indeed, I had already gained the consent of the other—victim"—he smiled deprecatingly—"to tell you, if necessary, what was being said behind your back."

"Well?" Anstice's tone was peremptory, but his friend did not resent it.

"The other anonymous letter—the only other one of which I have any knowledge—was addressed to the wife of your colleague—I don't think he's your rival—Dr. Willows."

"Oh!" Anstice opened his eyes; he had not expected this revelation. "Poor little woman! What a shame to victimize her!"

"Yes—as you know, she's quite a girl, they've only been married three months; and the letter worried her considerably—so much so, in fact, that as Willows is away on a week's holiday she sent for me to advise her in the matter."

"What advice did you give her?"

"Well, in the first flush of indignation she was all for sending the horrid thing on to you—a pretty sure sign that any accusation against you had missed its mark," said Carey with a smile. "However, her heart failed her at the critical moment and she sent for me instead. She was at school with some young cousins of mine and we are on quite friendly terms; so she confided her perplexity to me at once."

"I see." Anstice was thinking hard. "And I suppose you returned her confidence by giving her yours?"

"Yes." Carey looked at him frankly. "I requested her to keep my confidence as I would keep hers—save to you—and I am sure she will do so. But"—he spoke gravely now—"I am afraid, Anstice, there is someone in the neighbourhood who wishes to work you ill."

"By the way"—Anstice was not listening very closely—"you have not yet told me the nature of the accusation. I presume it was the same in both cases?"

"Practically, yes. It was a statement, made very plainly and directly, that you—you——"

He broke off, his thin cheeks flushing; and Anstice smiled rather dryly.

"Don't let it distress you," he said, with an attempt at jocularity. "Suppose I save you the trouble of repeating the contents of the letters. I daresay the writer stated that I once, in order to get myself out of a tight place in India, wantonly sacrificed the woman who was my companion?"

"Yes," said Carey slowly, "that was the substance of both communications. The idea was, I gather, to prevent the recipients having confidence in you by pointing to you as one who would save himself at the expense of a woman. Of course"—he spoke more fluently now—"no one who knew you would dream of attaching any weight whatever to that sort of cruel and senseless lie; and as I told Mrs. Willows, such a baseless slander is better left to die for want of notice. She quite agreed with me," he added hastily, and Anstice's face cleared.

"Thanks, Carey." He held out his hand, and Carey's transparent, fingers clasped it with a strength which would have been surprising to one who did not know the indomitable spirit which dwelt in the wasted frame. "You are a true friend, and your friendship deserves some return. Unfortunately the only return I can make is to tell you the miserable story which is perverted by the anonymous writer into something less creditable than—I hope—you will judge it to be."

He sprang up suddenly and leaned against the mantelpiece, hands in pockets as usual; and in that position, looking down on his friend as he sat in his capacious chair, he outlined once again the happenings of that bygone Indian dawn.

He related the affair shortly—it was not a subject on which he cared to dwell; and the clergyman listened thoughtfully, his sunken eyes fixed on the pale face beneath the clustering black hair with an intentness of regard which would have disturbed anyone less engrossed than the narrator of the sad little story.

When he had finished Anstice moved abruptly.

"Well, that's the truth—and now you see that those statements made about me are the most insidious form of lying—with a good foundation of half-truths. That's what makes it so infernally hard to refute them."

"I see." Carey loaned forward thoughtfully, shielding his face from the flames with his thin hands. "It is a pitiful story, Anstice; and if you will allow me to say so I admire and respect a man who can live down the memory of a tragedy as you have done."

"I have lived it down—yes," said Anstice, rather grimly. "But it's been jolly hard at times not to throw up the sponge. Several people have suggested—discreetly—that suicide is quite justifiable in cases of this sort, but——"

"Suicide is never justifiable." The clergyman's delicate features stiffened. "From the days of Judas Iscariot—the most notorious suicide in the history of the world, I suppose—it has been the refuge of the coward, the ingrate, the weak-minded. People talk of the pluck required to enable a man to take his own life. What pluck is there in deliberately turning one's back on the problems one hasn't the courage, or the patience, to solve? Believe me, suicide—self-murder—is an unthinkable resource to a really brave man."

He stopped; but Anstice made no reply, though a rather cynical smile played about his lips; and presently Carey went on speaking.

"It always seems to me such sheer folly, such egregious lunacy, to precipitate one's self into the unknown, seeing that one can hardly expect the Giver of Life to welcome the soul He has not called. And I have often wondered what depths of misery, of shame, must overwhelm the uninvited soul in what someone has called 'the first five minutes after Death.'"

His voice sank to a whisper on the last words; and for a moment the room was very still. Then Carey leaned forward and laid one hand on the other's arm with a rather deprecating smile.

"Forgive me, Anstice! The subject we were discussing is one on which I find it difficult to hold my peace. But knowing you, I know that suicide is not, would never be, the way out to one of your disposition."

Anstice moved restlessly.

"Odd you should use that expression," he said quickly. "Others have employed it in connection with this miserable story of mine. No, suicide is not the way out—nor is another expedient to which I have had recourse. But"—suddenly his face lost its quietness and grew keen, alert—"this slander has got to be stopped. You see this is not the first time the neighborhood has been infested with this plague."

"You refer to the unhappy circumstances connected with my predecessor's wife?"

"Yes. You know the story, of course?"

"Yes. I am also acquainted—but very slightly—with Mrs. Carstairs."

"Then you know a much-maligned woman," said Anstice. "And it is in order to save her from further unhappiness that I intend to sift this matter to the bottom."

"I am delighted to hear you say so," said Carey earnestly. "And if I can help you in any way my services are yours. First of all, how do you propose starting on the sifting process?"

"I have already made a start," rejoined Anstice. "Through the good offices of Sir Richard Wayne, who has also been pestered with a letter, I have discovered that the writing of those communications and of those earlier ones you mentioned just now is in many respects identical."

Carey sat upright, his face alight with interest.

"Really? You think the writer of both is the same?"

"Yes. Of course until I have studied the two letters in my possession a little more closely I can't be positively certain on the point; but I intend to submit them both to an expert at the first opportunity."

"I can help you there," said Carey quite eagerly. "I mean, if you do not know of a reliable expert I can give you the name of the cleverest man in England."

"Can you?" Anstice's notebook was out in a second. "Thanks very much—I will write to him to-morrow. But in my own mind I have not a shadow of doubt that the same person wrote them both."

"By the way"—Carey spoke slowly—"how many people about here would be likely to know the story you have told me to-night? Out in India, of course, there might be some who would remember such a tragic episode. But it's a far cry from Alostan to Littlefield."

"The only people in the neighbourhood who have heard the true story are, so far as I know, Sir Richard Wayne and"—he hesitated—"and his daughter, who is now Mrs. Cheniston."

"I see." Fraser Carey's eyes had noted the change of tone as Anstice spoke the last name; and his quick humanism was stirred by the pitiful idea which crossed his mind. "Sir Richard's daughter knew the story? And—may we conclude that her husband would naturally share her knowledge?"

"Naturally—yes." He emphasized the word. "You see I omitted to tell you that the girl I—the girl who was with me in the hut was engaged to this very man, Bruce Cheniston, whom Miss Wayne eventually married."

"Was she, indeed?" Carey was really surprised. "What a strange coincidence that you should meet again—as I suppose you met—in Littlefield."

"We met, yes," said Anstice, his eyes growing fierce at the remembrance of their meeting. "But—well, as you will readily see, none of those persons is in the least likely to have anything to do with the letters we are discussing. I daresay Mrs. Carstairs may possibly know the story—if her brother saw fit to hand it on to her. But so far as I know they are the only people who do know it, and naturally we can write all of them off the list of suspects at once."

"Quite so. I wonder"—Carey rose as he spoke—"I wonder if anyone else has received one of those shameful letters? Of course should the matter go no further there is not much real harm done, though of course——"

"Whether there are other letters or not the matter is going to be thoroughly investigated," said Anstice resolutely; and Carey experienced a disturbing and quite unusual pang of regret for his own vanished youth and strength as he heard the ring of determination in the other man's voice, noted the firm set of his lips and the proud and dauntless gesture with which he threw back his head, his black eyes sparkling.

"Well, I shall follow the course of events with deep interest," he said, striving as he spoke to fight down that unworthy sensation of envy of another's superior equipment for the battle of life. "Of course I will keep my own counsel; and in a few days at latest you should know whether your enemy intends to strike again."

"It is very good of you to take an interest in the horrible affair." Anstice was really grateful. "Must you go? You haven't given me much of your company to-night."

"I must go—yes." His smile robbed the words of any discourtesy. "But don't forget to call upon me if you want any help. And for the sake of all concerned, but especially, if I may say so, for the sake of the poor lady at Cherry Orchard, I trust you may be able to clear the matter up for all the world to see."

"It is chiefly for Mrs. Carstairs' sake that I intend to do so," returned Anstice briefly. "Personally I don't care what may be said about me; but I don't mean Mrs. Carstairs to be victimized further. And if it costs me every penny I've got in the world the writer of these letters shall be brought to book!"

And Fraser Carey agreed, mentally, with Sir Richard's estimation of Mrs. Carstairs' new champion. But he went further than Sir Richard, in that he found occasion to wonder whether after all this unexpected and unwelcome repetition of the former anonymous campaign which had convulsed Littlefield might not in the end prove the salvation of the man against whom it was presumably directed.

Unlike Sir Richard, Carey was an observer of men, a student of human nature, and he had not failed to notice the increased alertness which had characterized Anstice this evening as he discussed the situation. The rather bitter, indifferent look which generally clouded his face had lifted, giving way to a brighter, more open expression; and the half melancholy cynicism which Carey had deplored had vanished before the eager determination to see an innocent and wronged woman righted in the eyes of the world.

"The man has brooded so long over what he considers to be an injustice of God that he has lost, temporarily, his sense of proportion," said Carey to himself as he trudged, rather wearily, homeward. "But if he devotes himself, as he seems anxious to do, to the service of a woman who has suffered an equal injustice, though at the hands of man this time, possibly he will forgot his own bitterness in the contemplation of her marred life. And God, who is the God of Justice, whatever scoffers may say, will bring the truth to light in His own good time. So the two tragedies may react on one another; for the lives of all of us are bound together by mysterious and undreamed-of links; and in the effort to free the soul of a woman from its bondage his own soul may well find its freedom."

But Fraser Carey was a mystic; and since the materialistic world looks with suspicion on mysticism, it is probable that even Anstice, who knew and respected him, would have heard his last speech with a passing wonder that a man should hold so unpractical and untenable a view of existence as the words would seem to imply.