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

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

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

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

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

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

"You have known her long?"

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

"They lived here after their marriage?"

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

"You mean--wife _versus_ mother?"

"Yes. Upon my soul, Anstice, I can't understand how a woman ever decides
between the two claims. To hand over her baby to relations, or even
strangers, must be like tearing the heart out of her bosom, and yet a
woman wants her husba