The more Anstice pondered over the matter of the anonymous letters, the more inclined he was to believe that the woman Tochatti was one of the prime movers, if not the sole participator, in the affair.

Leaving the subject of motive out of the question for the moment, it was evident that Tochatti, of all the household, would have the most free access to her mistress' writing-table or bureau; and Anstice knew, through a chance word, that on the occasion of Mrs. Carstairs' fatal visit to Brighton, she had been accompanied by her maid.

True, the woman was supposed, by those around her, to be incapable of writing, even to the extent of signing her name; but, as the export had pointed out in the course of the interview, it was not unknown for a person to deny the possession of some faculty, either from a desire to gain sympathy or from some other and less creditable reason.

The question of motive, however, was a more complicated one. Why should this woman seek to injure her mistress in the first place, and having done her an irrevocable wrong—always supposing Tochatti to be the culprit—why should she seek now to bring dishonour on a man who had never, to his knowledge, done her any harm?

The thing seemed, on the face of it, absurd; yet somehow Anstice could not relinquish his very strong notion that Tochatti was in reality at the bottom of the business, and on the Sunday following his visit to Mr. Clive he walked over to Greengates to discuss the matter with Sir Richard Wayne.

Sir Richard was almost pathetically pleased to see his visitor, for he missed his pretty daughter sorely, and he welcomed Anstice cordially on this foggy November afternoon.

Over their cigars in Sir Richard's cosy sanctum Anstice gave him an outline of his visit to the handwriting expert and the conclusions to be drawn therefrom—a narrative to which Sir Richard listened with close attention; and when Anstice had finished his story the older man took up the subject briskly.

"You really think this woman may be implicated? Of course, as you say, she would have opportunities for tampering with Mrs. Carstairs' belongings; but still—the question of motive——"

"I quite realize that difficulty, Sir Richard. But I confess to a very strong feeling of distrust for the woman since visiting Clive. He suggested almost at once that the writer was a foreigner, and Tochatti is about the only foreign, or half-foreign, person in Littlefield, I should say."

"Quite so." Sir Richard leaned back in his chair and placed his finger-tips together in a judicial attitude. "Well, let us consider the question of motive a little more fully. If the writer really were Tochatti, we must suppose her to be actuated by some strong feeling. The question is, what feeling would be sufficiently strong to drive her to a deed of this nature?"

He paused; but Anstice, having no suggestion to make, kept silence, and Sir Richard went on with his speech.

"Generally speaking, in the character of a woman of a Southern nature, we find one or two strongly-marked attributes. One is a capacity for love, equalled only by a capacity for hatred. Of course Tochatti is only half Italian, but personally I distrust what we may call half-breeds even more than the real thing. You know the old proverb, 'An Englishman Italianate He is a devil incarnate'—and I believe there is some truth in the words."

"I share your distrust for half-breeds," said Anstice fervently. "And in this case, although she speaks excellent English as a rule, it always seems to me that Tochatti is more than half Italian. Do you agree with me?"

"I do—and that's why I distrust her," returned Sir Richard grimly. "I confess I don't like the women of the Latin races—those of the lower classes, anyway. A woman of that sort who is supplanted by a rival is about the most dangerous being on the face of the earth. She sticks at nothing—carries a knife in her garter, a phial of poison in her handbag, and will quite cheerfully sacrifice her own life if she may mutilate or destroy the aforesaid hated rival."

"So I have always understood. But in this case, if you will excuse me pointing it out, there is no possibility of love entering into it. To begin with, Tochatti is a middle-aged woman; and of course there could not be any question of rivalry between her and her mistress."

"Oh, of course not. I was speaking generally," Sir Richard reminded him. "But there are other reasons for jealousy besides the primary reason, love. You know, in the case of these last letters, which are certainly actuated by some very real spite against you ... why, what's the matter now?" For Anstice had uttered an exclamation which sounded almost exultant.

"By Jove, sir, I believe I've got it—the reason why the woman should feel spiteful towards me!" In his excitement he threw away his cigar, half-smoked, and Sir Richard, noting the action, guessed that an important revelation was at hand.

"You've got it, eh?" Sir Richard sat upright in his chair. "Well, may I hear it? It's no secret, I suppose?"

"Secret? Heavens, no—but how intensely stupid I've been not to think of it before!"

"Go on—you're rousing my curiosity," said Sir Richard as Anstice came to a sudden stop. "Tell me how on earth you have managed to rouse the woman's spite. Personally, seeing how cleverly you pulled her adored Cherry through that illness of hers, I should have thought she would have extended her devotion to you."

"That's just how the trouble began," rejoined Anstice quickly. "You remember how the child set herself on fire one night in September?"

"Yes—on the night before Iris' wedding day." In spite of himself Anstice winced, and the other man noted the fact and wondered. "Set fire to herself with a candle, didn't she?"

"Yes—and Tochatti put out the flames somehow, burning one of her hands in the process."

"Did she? I had forgotten that."

"Yes—with the result that she was not able to take her fair share of nursing the child, and I accordingly installed a nurse."

"Yes, I remember—a bonny girl, with a voice as soft as the coo of a wood-pigeon."

"Just so. Well, I—or rather Mrs. Carstairs—had a pitched battle with Tochatti before she would consent to Nurse Trevor being engaged; and the girl herself told me that the woman did her very best to make her life unbearable while she was at Cherry Orchard."

"The deuce she did! But if she were really incapacitated——"

"She was; but with the unreasonableness of women—some women," he corrected himself hastily, "she resented her enforced helplessness, and looking back I can recall very well how she used to scowl at me when I visited Cherry."

"Really! You're not imagining it?"

"I'm not an imaginative person," returned Anstice dryly. "I assure you it was no fancy of mine. She used to answer any questions I put to her with a most irritating sullenness; and once or twice even Mrs. Carstairs reproved her—before me—for her unpleasant manner."

"You think that would be sufficient to account for the animus against you displayed in these letters?"

"Honestly, I do. You see, luckily or unluckily, the child took a great fancy to Nurse Trevor; and being ill and consequently rather spoilt, she behaved capriciously towards her former beloved Tochatti—with the result that the woman hated the nurse—and hated me the more for having introduced her into the household."

Sir Richard nodded meditatively.

"Yes. I see. It hangs together, certainly, and it is quite a feasible explanation. But what about the nurse? She would be the one against whom Tochatti might be expected to wreak her spite——"

"Yes, but you see Nurse Trevor was only a bird of passage, so to speak. She had come down here from a private nursing home in Birmingham, and had just finished nursing a case when I wanted her; and after Cherry was better she returned to Birmingham; so that the woman would probably have had a good deal of trouble in getting on her track."

"Quite so. You, being at hand, were a more likely victim. Upon my soul, it almost looks as though you were right. Still, even this does not explain why she should ruin Chloe's life."

"No, I admit that. But don't you think if we could bring this last crime—for it is a crime—home to the Italian woman we could wring a confession out of her concerning the first series of letters?"

"Yes, that is quite possible. The question is, How are we going to bring it home to her? At present we have no clue beyond the specialist's opinion that the writer is a foreigner."

"No, and it's going to be a hard nut to crack," said Anstice thoughtfully. "But it shall be cracked all the same. What do you say to taking Mrs. Carstairs into our confidence, Sir Richard? Of course the idea will be a shock to her at first; but if the matter could be cleared up, think what a difference it would make to her!"

"Yes, indeed!" Sir Richard agreed heartily. "And to her husband as well. You know, Major Carstairs is a man with a rather peculiar code of honour; and you must not run away with the idea that because he refuses to believe in his wife's innocence he is necessarily a narrow-minded or—or callous person."

"I don't," said Anstice quickly. "By the way I've not told you all that happened the day I was in town. By a curious coincidence I met Major Carstairs——"

"What, is he in England again?"

"Yes." Anstice related the particulars of the meeting between them, and repeated, so far as he could remember it, the substance of the subsequent conversation in the club. "So you see, Sir Richard, Major Carstairs is not only ready, but longing, to be convinced of his wife's innocence in the matter."

"Good! That's capital!" Sir Richard beamed. "If once Chloe can be led to understand that her husband will believe in her one day she will be ready to help us to prove her innocence. You know I have sometimes thought that if she had taken up a rather more human, more feminine attitude, had relinquished the pride which forbade her to protest loudly against the injustice which was done her, she might have been better off in the end. It is very hard fighting for a woman who won't fight for herself; and that idea of hers that if her own personal character were not enough to prove her blameless of so vile a charge nothing else was worth trying—well, it was the attitude of conscious innocence, no doubt, but it was certainly above the heads of a conscientious, but particularly unintelligent jury!"

He put down the stump of his cigar, which unlike Anstice he had smoked to the end, and looked at the other man with a kindly eye.

"Look here, Anstice, why shouldn't we go—you and I—to visit Mrs. Carstairs now?"

"Now?" Anstice was somewhat taken aback at the proposal.

"Yes. Why not? There's no time like the present. It is barely six o'clock, and she will certainly be at home."

"But—won't she be at church?" Anstice felt suddenly unwilling to go into the matter with the mistress of Cherry Orchard.

"Not she! Don't you know Chloe only goes to church once in a blue moon?" Sir Richard laughed breezily. "I don't blame her—I expect she feels she owes Providence a grudge—but anyway she will be at home to-night. And—another inducement—Tochatti will almost certainly be at her church. Those Catholics are a queer lot," said Sir Richard, who was a Protestant of the old school. "They will cheat you and lie to you—aye, and half murder you, on a Saturday night—and turn up at Mass without fail on Sunday morning!"

"Yes, I know Tochatti does go to the Roman Catholic chapel at night," owned Anstice rather reluctantly. "Well, sir, if you really think the moment is propitious let us go by all means. After all, it is just possible Mrs. Carstairs may have had suspicions of Tochatti herself."

"Yes. I remember Iris often used to say she distrusted the woman—don't know why. I never paid much attention to her caprices," said Sir Richard with a smile; and Anstice made haste to seize the opportunity thus offered.

"Ah—by the way, what news have you of your daughter?" He could not call her by the name he hated. "She is still in Egypt, I suppose?"

"Yes. She and Bruce are somewhere in the Fayoum at present—he has been engaged on some irrigation job for a rich Egyptian of sorts, and he and Iris have been camping out in the desert—quite a picnic they seem to have had."

"Really?" For the life of him he could not speak naturally; but Sir Richard was merciful and ignored his strained tone.

"They sent me some photographs—snapshots—last week," said Sir Richard. "Would you care to see them? I have them here somewhere."

He opened a drawer as he spoke, and after rummaging in the contents for a few moments drew out half a dozen small prints which he handed to Anstice, saying:

"Amateur, of course—but quite good, all the same. Oh, by the way"—he spoke with elaborate carelessness—"how did you come? Are you walking, or have you the car?"

"The car? No, I walked—wanted exercise," said Anstice rather vaguely; and Sir Richard nodded.

"Then we'll have out the little car, and you shall drive us over if you will. And if you'll excuse me for a moment I'll just go and order it round."

He waited for no reply, but bustled out of the room as though in sudden haste; and left to himself Anstice turned over the little photographs he held and studied them with eager eyes.

Four of them were of Iris—happy little studies of her in delightfully natural poses. In one she was standing bare-headed beneath a tall date-palm, shading her eyes with her hand as though looking for someone across the expanse of sunny sand before her. In another she stood by the edge of the Nile, in converse with a native woman who bore a balass on her head; and even the tiny picture was sufficiently large to bring out the contrast between the slim, fair English girl in her white gown and Panama hat and the dusky Egyptian, whose dark skin and closely-swathed robes gave her the look of some Old Testament character, a look borne out by the surroundings of reed-fringed river and plumy, tufted palms. In the third photograph Iris was on horseback; but it was the fourth and last which brought the blood to Anstice's brow, made his heart beat quickly with an emotion in which delight, regret, wild happiness and over-mastering sorrow fought for the predominance.

It was a photograph of Iris' head, nothing more; but it brought out every separate charm with an art which seemed to bring the living girl before the man who pored over the print with greedy eyes.

She was looking straight out from the photograph and in her face was that look of half-laughing, half-wistful tenderness which Anstice knew so well. Her lips were ever so slightly parted; and in her whole expression was something so vital as to be almost startling, as though some tinge of the sitter's personality had indeed been caught by the camera and imprisoned for ever in the picture. It was Iris as Anstice knew—and loved—her best: youth personified, yet with a womanliness, a gracious femininity, which seemed to promise a more than commonly attractive maturity.

And as he looked at the little picture, the presentment of the girl he loved caught and imprisoned by the magic of the sun, Anstice felt the full bitterness of his hopeless love surge over his soul in a flood whose onrush no philosophy could stem. To him Iris would always be the one desired woman in the world. No other woman, be she a hundred times more beautiful, could ever fill the place held in his heart by this grey-eyed girl. With her, life would have been a perpetual feast, a lingering sacrament. Her companionship would have been sufficient to turn the dull fare of ordinary life into the mysterious Bread and Wine which only lovers know; and with her beside him there had been no heights to which he might not have attained, no splendour of achievement, of renown, even of renunciation, which might not have been reached before the closing cadence which is death had ended, irrevocably, the symphony of life.

But not for him was this one supreme glory, the glory of an existence spent with her. She had chosen otherwise—for one fiercely rebellious moment he told himself he had been a fool, and worse, to enter on that infamous bargain with Bruce Cheniston—and henceforth he must put away all thoughts of her, must banish his dreams to that mysterious region where our lost hopes lie—never, so far as we can see, to come to fruition; unless, as some have thought, there shall be in another world a great and marvellous country where lost causes shall be retrieved, forlorn hopes justified, and the thousand and one pitiful mistakes we make in our earthly blindness rectified at last.

The door opened suddenly, and Sir Richard's voice smote cheerily on his ears.

"I've got the car, Anstice, and if you are ready——"

Anstice hastily replaced the photographs, face downwards on the table, and turned to Sir Richard with a trace of confusion in his manner.

"The car there? Oh, yes, I'm ready. You would like me to drive?"

"If you will—then Fletcher can stop at home. You'll come back to dinner with me, of course."

With some haste Anstice excused himself; and after a courteous repetition of the invitation Sir Richard did not press the matter.

Mrs. Carstairs was at home, and alone; and in a moment the two men were ushered into her pretty drawing-room, where she sat, book in hand, over a dancing wood-fire.

She looked up in some surprise as the door opened to admit visitors; but on seeing Sir Richard she rose with a welcoming smile.

"Sir Richard! How good of you to take pity on me on a day like this!" She greeted the old man with almost daughterly affection; and then turned to Anstice with a rather forced expression of cordiality.

"You, too, Dr. Anstice! How sorry Cherry will be to have missed you!"

"Is she in bed, then?"

"Yes, I'm sorry to say she was a naughty girl and was put to bed immediately after tea!" She laughed a little, and Anstice asked, smiling, what had been the extent of Cherry's latest misdemeanour.

"Oh, nothing very serious," said Chloe lightly. "It was really to soothe Tochatti's wounded feelings that I had to banish the poor child. It seems that one day last week, while out walking with Tochatti, Cherry noticed a house in the village with all its blinds down; and on inquiring the reason Tochatti informed her that someone was dead in the house; further entering, so I gather, into full details as to the manner in which Catholics decorate the death-chamber."

"Oh?" Anstice looked rather blank. "But I don't see——"

"Well, it seems the idea fired Cherry's imagination; and this morning, when Tochatti returned from High Mass about noon, she found the blinds pulled down in all the front windows of the house!"

"The little monkey!" Sir Richard laughed. "I'll wager the woman got a fright!"

"She certainly did, and matters were not improved by Cherry coming to meet her with her face quite wet with tears—you know Cherry is a born actress—and begging her, between sobs, to come upstairs softly as someone was dead!"

"Someone? She did not specify who it was?"

"No—or if she did Tochatti did not understand; but when she got into the nursery she found an elaborately conceived representation of a Catholic death-bed—flowers, bits of candle, and so on; and Cherry's very biggest doll—the one you gave her, by the way, Dr. Anstice—enacting the part of the corpse!"

Even Anstice's mood was not proof against the humour of the small child's pantomime; and both he and Sir Richard laughed heartily.

"And Tochatti took it amiss?" Sir Richard put the question amid his laughter.

"Yes. It seems she had really had a bad fright; and on finding Cherry in tears she never doubted that some tragedy had occurred!"

"So you had to punish the poor mite for her realism!"

"Yes. Tochatti waited for me to return—I was out motoring—and then hauled the culprit before me; and although I really didn't see much harm in poor little Cherry's joke I was obliged, in order to pacify Tochatti, to sentence her to go to bed early—a special punishment on Sunday, when, as a rule, she sits up quite late!"

"I almost wonder," said Anstice slowly, "that Tochatti, devoted as she is to Cherry, could bring herself to give the child away. One would have expected her to hush up any small misdeeds, not dwell upon them to the powers that be."

Chloe looked at him with a hint of cynicism in her eyes.

"Even Tochatti is human," she said, "and when one has had a fright one's natural impulse, on being reassured, is to scold somebody. Besides, Tochatti, in her way, is implacable. She never forgives what she really considers an injury."

These words, fitting in so curiously with their conversation a little earlier, caused the men to glance surreptitiously at one another; but Chloe, whose eyes were as sharp as her wits, intercepted the look.

"Sir Richard, why do you and Dr. Anstice look at one another?" She put the question directly, with her usual frankness; and Sir Richard met candour with candour.

"I will tell you in a moment, Chloe. First of all, I will admit that our visit here to-night was made with a purpose. We came here to ask you one or two questions which I feel sure you will answer as fully as possible."

"Certainly I will." Her manner had lost its animation and once more she wore the marble mask which as a rule hid the real woman from the world's gaze. "But won't you sit down? And if a cigarette will help you in your cross-examination——"

She sat down herself as she spoke, and Sir Richard followed her example; but Anstice remained standing on one side of the fireplace; and after a glance at his face Chloe did not repeat her invitation.

Rather to Sir Richard's surprise Chloe did not wait for him to begin questioning her; but put a question to him on her own account.

"Sir Richard, has your visit anything to do with certain letters received lately by several people in Littlefield?"

Both the men, genuinely taken aback, stared at her in silence; and with a faint smile she proceeded quietly.

"Well, I have heard of those letters, anyway. In fact"—she paused dramatically before making her coup—"I've received one myself!"

"You have?" Anstice's voice was full of dismay.

"Yes. And I gather, from a short conversation I had with Mr. Carey last evening, that there have been several more of the things flying about this week."

"Well"—Sir Richard looked rather helplessly at Anstice—"in that case there is no need to make a mystery of it. Yes, Chloe, we did call here to-night to talk over those abominable letters, and to see if you can possibly help us to follow up a rather extraordinary clue."

"A clue!" Chloe's eyes suddenly blazed.

"Yes. That is to say—possible clue." Sir Richard hedged a little. "But Anstice can tell you the story better than I can."

"Will you, please, tell me, Dr. Anstice?" She turned to him, grave again now; and he complied at once, giving her a full account of his visit to Clive, and relating at length the expert's opinion on the letters.

She heard him out in silence; her almond-shaped eyes on his face; and Anstice omitted nothing of the happenings of that day in town, save his unexpected meeting with her husband in Piccadilly.

When he had finished Chloe sat quite still for a moment, saying nothing; and neither of the men dreamed of hurrying her.

At last:

"But, Dr. Anstice—Tochatti! Why, she has been with me for years—ever since I was a child like Cherry!"

Her voice was so full of incredulity that for a moment both her hearers wondered suddenly how they could have accepted the possibility of Tochatti's guilt so readily. But Anstice's common sense reasserted itself immediately; and he knew that the mere fact of Mrs. Carstairs' unbelief did not really materially alter the main issue. It was natural she should be surprised, unwilling to believe evil of the woman who, whatever her faults, had served her faithfully; but this was no time for sentimentality; and he replied to Chloe's last speech rather uncompromisingly.

"Even the fact that she has been with you for years does not preclude the possibility of her doing this thing," he said. "Of course I can understand you would hesitate to believe her capable of such wickedness, but——"

"But why should Tochatti wish to work me harm?" Her blue eyes were full of a kind of hurt wonder. "And these last letters directed against you, Dr. Anstice—why on earth should she have any spite against you?"

"Dr. Anstice tells me she much resented the presence of the hospital nurse in the house," chimed in Sir Richard. "Of course she has always been absurdly jealous of any claim to Cherry's affection—even Iris noticed that and used to say she hardly dared to pet the child before Tochatti."

"Yes." Chloe assented reluctantly. "That is quite true. She has always been jealous; and I confess I once or twice saw her look at Dr. Anstice with a—well, rather malignant expression. But I thought it was only a passing jealousy; and judged it best to take no notice."

"Of course all this is very largely conjectural," said Anstice slowly. "Such evidence as we have is purely circumstantial; and wouldn't hang a cat. But I admit that Mr. Clive's suggestion carries weight with me; and it is certainly odd that he should have mentioned an Italian as the possible author of the letters when there is a person of that nationality—more or less—in the house."

"Yes. I can see that for myself." Chloe's voice was low. "But to be quite candid, I don't see how it would be possible to bring the letters home to Tochatti. To begin with, she can't write."

"Or pretends she can't. You must remember, Mrs. Carstairs, we have only the woman's own word for that."

"I certainly never remember seeing her with a pen in her hand," said Chloe, "though of course that's no real proof. But if this horrible idea is correct how are you going to prove it? You don't intend to tackle Tochatti herself, I suppose?"

"Not for the world," said Anstice hastily. "That would be a fatal mistake. A woman who is clever enough to carry on an intrigue of this kind without incurring suspicion is sufficiently clever to answer any direct questioning satisfactorily. No. If Tochatti is the culprit—mind you I only say if—she must be caught with guile, made to commit herself somehow, or be taken red-handed in the act——" He broke off suddenly; and the other two looked at him in surprise.

"Well, Anstice, what's struck you now?" Sir Richard's tone was eager.

"Only this. Is your writing-table always open to access, Mrs. Carstairs? I mean, you don't lock up your ink and pens, and so on?"

"No," she said, catching the drift of his questions at once. "Anyone in the house could sit down here to write and be sure of finding everything at hand."

"Just so—and unless the person who wrote was considerate enough to use the blotting-paper you would not know anyone had touched your things."

"No—unless they were left strewn untidily about."

"Which they would not be. Now, Mrs. Carstairs, to speak quite plainly, what is there to prevent Tochatti, or any other member of your household, creeping downstairs at the dead of night and making use of those pens and sheets of paper which you so obligingly leave about for anyone to play with?"

"Nothing," she said with a smile. "But unless you propose that I should sit up behind the curtains all night to see if some mysterious person does creep down——"

"That's just what I was going to propose," he said coolly. "At least I wasn't suggesting that you should be the person; but you might allow someone else to sit there on your behalf. You see, if Tochatti is really the mysterious writer she would not like to run the risk of keeping pens and ink in her own room where some prying eyes might light upon them sooner or later. It would be much less incriminating to use another person's tools, and it is quite possible many, if not all, of those beastly letters were written at this very table!"

The conviction in his tone brought forth a protest from Chloe.

"Dr. Anstice, have you really made up your mind that my poor Tochatti is the criminal? It seems to me that your evidence is very flimsy—after all some uneducated person might quite easily put those inverted commas wrong without being a foreigner; and I still disbelieve in Tochatti's power to write. Besides"—she paused a moment—"she has always served me with so much devotion. She is not perfect, I know, but none of us is that; and I have never, never seen anything in her manner which would lead me to suppose her to be the hypocrite, the ungrateful, heartless creature you seem to imply she is."

Listening to Chloe's words, watching the clear colour flood the marble whiteness of her cheeks, Anstice was struck by the curious contrast between this generous championship of a woman who had served her and her utter indifference and lack of all protest when it was her own innocence which was in question. In defence of her servant she spoke warmly, vehemently, unwilling apparently, to allow even mere acquaintances to look upon the woman as unworthy; yet she had rarely expressed in words her own entire innocence of the disgraceful charge which had been made against her; and had suffered the cruel injustice meted out to her without allowing its iron to enter into her soul.

And as he watched and listened Anstice told himself that there was something of nobility in this reluctance to accept her own acquittal at the cost of another's condemnation; yet his determination to see her righted never wavered; and he answered her impassioned speech in a cool and measured tone.

"Mrs. Carstairs, I think you will agree with me that the person who was capable of carrying out such a gigantic piece of deceit, carrying it through to the extent of allowing an innocent person to be found guilty for her offence, must be capable of a good deal more in the way of hypocrisy. I don't say for certain that your maid has written these letters; I don't yet know enough to convict her, or anyone else; but I do say that if it were she who stood by and allowed you to suffer for her wickedness, well, she is fully capable of living with you on terms of apparently, the most respectful devotion—and hating you in her heart all the while."

"But why should she hate me?" Chloe's tone expressed an almost childish wonder; and Sir Richard, who had been watching her uneasily, rose from his seat and patted her shoulder reassuringly.

"There, there, don't distress yourself, my dear!" His tone was fatherly. "After all, we only want to clear up this mystery for your sake. I daresay Anstice would be quite willing to let the matter drop if he alone were concerned——"

"Ah! I had forgotten that!" She turned to him with contrition in her blue eyes. "Dr. Anstice, please forgive me! In my selfishness I was quite forgetting that you were a victim of this unknown person's spite! Of course the matter must be sifted to the very bottom; and if Tochatti is indeed guilty she must be punished."

"I think you are quite right, Chloe." Sir Richard spoke with unexpected decision. "For all our sakes the matter must be cleared up. You see"—he hesitated—"there are others to be considered besides ourselves."

"My husband, for one," said Chloe unexpectedly. "I heard from him this morning—he is back in England again now."

"Mrs. Carstairs"—Anstice, feeling desperately uncomfortable, broke into the conversation abruptly—"may I go upstairs and say good-night to Cherry? You know I got into serious trouble for not going up the last time I was here."

She turned to him, smiling.

"Of course you may, Dr. Anstice. I know Cherry would be heart-broken to hear you had gone without seeing her. You know the way?"

"Yes, thanks." He had grown familiar with the house during the weeks of Cherry's illness. "I won't stay long—and I'll not wake her if she's asleep."

She was not asleep, however; and her face lighted with pleasure as Anstice stole quietly in.

"Oh, do come in, my dear!" She sat up in bed, a quaint little figure with two thick brown plaits, tied with cherry-coloured ribbons, over her shoulders. "I'm just about fed up with this stupid old bed!"

She thumped her pillows resentfully; and Anstice, coming up, sat down beside her, and beat up the offending pillows with the mock professional touch which Cherry adored.

"That better, eh?"

"Rather!" She leaned back luxuriously. "Wasn't it a shame sending me to bed to-day? And I hadn't really done nothing!" The intensity of the speech called for the double negation.

"Well, I don't know what you call nothing," returned Anstice, smiling. "Apparently you'd given poor Tochatti a terrible fright——"

"Serve her right," said Cherry placidly. "She shouldn't have been so silly as to think any real person was dead. She might have known all the servants would have been howling on the doorstep then!"

The tone in which she made this remarkable statement was too much for Anstice's gravity; and he gave way to a fit of unrestrained laughter which mightily offended his small friend.

"I don't see anything to laugh at," she observed icily. "Seems to me people being dead ought to make you cry 'stead of laugh."

"Quite so, Cherry," returned Anstice, wiping his eyes ostentatiously. "But you see in this case there wasn't anybody dead—at least, so I understood from Mrs. Carstairs."

"Yes, there was, then," returned Cherry, still unforgiving. "I'd gone and killed my best-b'loved Lady Daimler"—christened from her mother's car—"on purpose to make a pretty death-bed for Tochatti—and then she simply flew into a temper—oh, a most dreadful temper, my dear!" At the thought of Tochatti's anger she forgave Anstice's lesser offence, and took him once more into her favour.

"That was too bad, especially as I'm sure Tochatti doesn't, often lose her temper with you," said Anstice with some guile; and Cherry looked at him gravely, without speaking.

"Not with me," she announced presently. "But Tochatti gets awful cross sometimes. She used to be fearful angry with Nurse Marg'ret. Where's Nurse Marg'ret now, my dear?"

"Don't know, Cherry. I suppose she is nursing someone else by this time. Why do you want to know?"

"'Cos I like Nurse Marg'ret," said Cherry seriously. "Tochatti didn't. She made a wax dollie of her once, and she only does that when she doesn't like peoples."

"A wax dollie?" Anstice was honestly puzzled. "My dear child, what do you mean?"

"She did," said Cherry stoutly. "She maded an image like what they have in their churches, because I saw her do it—out of a candle, and then she got a great long pin and stuck it in the gas and runned it into the little dollie." As Cherry grew excited her speech became slightly unintelligible. "And I know it was Nurse Marg'ret 'cos she wrote a great big 'M' on a bit of paper and pinned it on to show who it was meant for."

Her words made an instant and very unexpected impression on her hearer; not alone as a revelation of Tochatti's mediÆval fashion of revenging herself upon an unconscious rival—though this method of revenge was amazing in the twentieth century—but as a strangely apt confirmation of those doubts and suspicions which had been gathering round the Italian woman in Anstice's mind during the last few days.

If Cherry had spoken truly—and there was no reason to think the child was lying—then Tochatti's supposed inability to write was an error; and once that fact were proved it should not, surely, be difficult to unravel the mystery which had already caused so much unhappiness.

But first he must make sure.

"Tell me, Cherry"—he spoke lightly—"how did you see all this? Surely Tochatti didn't show you what she was doing?"

"No." For a second Cherry looked abashed; then her spirit returned to her and she spoke boldly. "It was one night when Nurse Marg'ret had gone to bed—she was awful tired, and Tochatti said she'd sit up with me ... and I was cross, 'cos I didn't want her, I wanted Nurse Marg'ret," said Cherry honestly, "so I wouldn't speak to her, though she tried ever so hard to make me, and she thought I'd gone to sleep, and I heard her say something in 'talian.... I 'spect it was something naughty, 'cos she sort of hissed it, like a nasty snake once did at me when I was a teeny baby in Injia," said Cherry lucidly, "and then she looked up to be sure I was asleep, so I shutted my eyes ever so tight, and then she made the wax dollie and I watched her do it." Wicked Cherry chuckled gleefully at the remembrance.

"But the letter 'M'—how do you know she wrote that?" Anstice put the question very quietly.

"'Cos she couldn't find nothin' to write with, so she crept into Nurse Marg'ret's room next through mine and came back with her pen—one of those things what has little ink-bottles inside them," said Cherry, referring, probably, to the nurse's beloved "Swan." "And I watched her ever so close, 'cos I wanted to see what she was going to do, and she wrote a big 'M' on a bit of paper and pinned it into the dollie——"

"Into?" For a moment Anstice was puzzled.

"Yes, 'cos you see the dollie was all soft and squeezy," explained Cherry obligingly, "and it hadn't got no clothes on to pin it to, so it had to go into the soft part of the dollie."

"I see. But"—Anstice was still puzzled—"why do you say the dollie was meant for Nurse Margaret? Mightn't it have been somebody else?"

"No—'cos when Tochatti hates anyone she makes wax dollies end sticks pins into them," returned Cherry calmly. "I know, 'cos she once told me about a girl she knew what wanted somebody to die, and she did that and the person died."

"Oh, my dear little Cherry, what nonsense!" Anstice, whose mother had been an Irishwoman, had heard of the superstition before, had even known an old crone in a little Irish cabin high up in the mountains who had, so it was said, practised the rite with success; but to hear the unholy gospel from Cherry's innocent lips was distinctly distasteful; and instinctively he tried to shake her faith in Tochatti's teaching.

"'Tisn't nonsense—at least I don't think so," said Cherry, rather dubiously. "Of course Nurse Marg'ret didn't die.... I don't think she even got ill—but p'raps Tochatti didn't stick the pins in far 'nuff."

"Well, I'm quite sure if she stuck in all the pins out of your cherry-tree pincushion it wouldn't affect Nurse Margaret or anybody else," said Anstice, putting his arm round her shoulders as he spoke. "And you really mustn't get such silly notions into your head, Cherry Ripe!"

"That's what Iris used to call me," said Cherry, burrowing her head contentedly into his neck. "I wish she was back, don't you, my dear? Somehow things don't seem half such fun without Iris—I can't think what she wanted to go and marry Uncle Bruce for, can you?"

"There are many things I can't understand, little Cherry," said Anstice with a smile whose sadness was hidden from the child. "But I agree with you that it was much nicer when Iris"—he might venture here to use the beloved little name—"was at home. But we can't always have the people we like with us, can we?"

"No—or I'd always have you, my dear," said Cherry with unexpected though rather sleepy affection; and as Anstice, touched by the words, kissed her upturned little face, her pretty brown eyes closed irresistibly.

"Good-night, Cherry! Pleasant dreams!" He laid her back deftly on her pillows and the child was asleep almost before he had time to reach the door.

But as he went back to the drawing-room, eager to tell Mrs. Carstairs and Sir Richard of the revelations so innocently made by Cherry, he wondered whether at last the mystery were really within reach of a solution.

Cherry's story, although fragmentary and confused, was sufficiently coherent to rank as evidence; and although he could hardly credit Tochatti with a genuine belief in the old superstition of the wax image he reminded himself she was half a Southerner; and that in some of the mediÆval Italian towns and cities superstitions still thrive, in spite of the teaching of the modern world.

And if Cherry's story were true——

"Out of the mouths of babes"—he murmured to himself as he went down the shallow oak stairs—"strange if, after all, the child should be the one to clear up the whole mysterious affair! At any rate, we are a step further on the way to elucidation; and from the bottom of my heart I hope Mrs. Carstairs may be righted at last!"

And with this aspiration on his lips he entered the drawing-room and related the substance of his unexpectedly profitable interview with the unsuspicious Cherry to an interested and enthralled audience of two.