what you mean? Why should a
meeting between you and me be anything more than the prelude--as I hope
it may be--to a very pleasant friendship? I honour your belief in my
wife, but when you speak of proof----"

"Look here, Major Carstairs." With a sudden resolve Anstice pulled his
note-case out of his pocket and extracted two sheets of thin paper
therefrom. "You will probably be surprised when I tell you that those
infernal letters have started again, and this time I am the person
honoured by the writer's malicious accusations."

"The letters have started again? And you are the victim? But----"

"Well, look at this charming epistle sent to a certain gentleman in
Littlefield a day or two ago." Anstice handed across the letter he had
received from Sir Richard Wayne, and Major Carstairs took the sheet
gingerly, as though afraid of soiling his fingers by mere contact with
the paper.

He read the letter through, and then looked at Anstice with a new
expression in his eyes, which were so oddly reminiscent of Cherry's
brown orbs.

"Dr. Anstice, were you the hero of that unfortunate episode in the hills
a few years ago?"

Anstice nodded.

"I was the hero, if you put it so. Personally I should say I feel more
like the villain of the piece. That, anyway, is how the writer of this
letter regards me."

"Oh, that's nonsense." He spoke authoritatively. "You could have done
nothing else, and I think myself you showed any amount of pluck in
carrying out the girl's request. You and I, who have been in India, know
what strange and terrible things happen out there; and I tell you
plainly that if I had been that unfortunate girl's brother, or father, I
should have thanked you from the bottom of my heart for having the
courage to do as you did."

Now it was Anstice's turn to change colour. These words, so heartily
spoken, spoken, moreover, by a man who knew the world, whose
commendation carried weight by reason of the speaker's position, fell
with an indescribably soothing touch on the sore places in Anstice's
soul, and in that moment his inward wound received its first impetus
towards healing.

He threw back his head with something of the old proud gesture which was
now so rarely seen, and his voice, as he replied, held a new note of
confidence.

"Thanks awfully, sir." His manner was almost boyish. "You have no idea
what it means to me to hear you say that. Of course I acted as I did,
meaning it for the best, but things turn