osing 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