land or abroad, where he might have leisure to pursue those
studies in research which had been so ruthlessly cut short by his own
most unhappy miscalculation.

True, he no longer cared for fame. The possibility of some renown
crowning his toil no longer danced before his eyes with alluring
promises. The part of him which had craved success, recognition, the
youthful, vital part of him was dead, slain by the same bullet which had
ended poor Hilda Ryder's happy life; and although he was beginning to
look forward to a new and less cramped career than this which now
shackled him, the joyous, optimistic anticipation of youth was sadly
missing.

It was impossible that once at work the old interest in his subject
might awake; but now he would work for the work's sake only, for the
sake of the distraction it might afford him; and though through all his
troubles he had preserved, at bottom, the quick humanity which had led
him to choose medicine as his career, he was thinking less now of his
old ambition to find a means of alleviation for one of the greatest ills
of mankind than of the zest which the renewed study of the subject might
restore to his own overshadowed life.

Yet although he was determined to turn his back as soon as he decently
might on Littlefield and its people, with the perversity of mankind he
was equally determined to see them brought to confusion before he left
them--see them impelled to admit that in the case of Mrs. Carstairs they
had been unjust, prejudiced, and, most galling of all, misled; and the
question of his own vindication was only a secondary matter after all.

One day he heard, casually, that Major Carstairs was expected at Cherry
Orchard, and when he entered his house at lunch-time he found a note
from Chloe asking him to call upon her between tea and dinner and
remain, if possible, for the latter meal. In any case she asked him to
come for half an hour, at least, and he rang her up at once and fixed
six o'clock for the time of his call upon her.

At six accordingly he entered the drawing-room, and found Major
Carstairs in possession, as it were, standing on the hearth-rug with the
air of a man at home in his own house. Before Anstice had time to wonder
how this situation had arisen Chloe advanced, smiling, and held out her
hand.

"Good-evening, Dr. Anstice. I think you and my husband have met
already."

In these words she announced her cognizance of that meeting in
Piccadilly a few da