eemed to think that having
wrought so much harm by her one attempt at letter-writing she would be
wiser to avoid such things in future."

"Pity she didn't keep her resolve," commented Major Carstairs dryly; and
Chloe nodded.

"Yes. We should all have been spared a good deal of trouble. Well, as
you know, she entered my mother's service during her honeymoon in Italy,
and was my nurse as a child. Now I come to the second half of the story.
Tochatti chose to adore me from my early youth"--she smiled
faintly--"and she always bore a grudge against anyone who did not fall
down and worship me too. And this peculiar attitude of hers has a
bearing on the affair of the letters. When Mrs. Ogden chose to quarrel
with me, or at least evince a decided coldness, Tochatti's ready hatred
flared up; and after the unlucky day when Mrs. Ogden cut me dead before
half the county at a Flower Show, she determined to show the woman she
could not be allowed to insult me with impunity."

"It certainly was a piece of unpardonable rudeness," said Major
Carstairs warmly; and Chloe smiled.

"Yes--and at the moment I resented it very bitterly. But if Tochatti
herself had not been there, in charge of Cherry, the matter would have
dropped--and it was really unfortunate she should have seen the 'cut.'
Well, it seems that Tochatti brooded over the affair, wondering how best
to get even with the person who dared to act insolently towards me."
Chloe's voice held just a tinge of mockery. "Twenty odd years of
residence in England had taught her that one can't use daggers and
knives with impunity, and I believe at first she was genuinely puzzled
to know how to act. I suppose the thought of weapons turned her mind
back to that Sicilian affair; and suddenly it flashed upon her that
letters, after all, could be trusted to do a good deal of injury."

"So she wrote an anonymous letter calculated to do harm to the unlucky
subject thereof?"

"Yes, and sent it to Sir Richard Wayne. Well, once having started she
apparently couldn't leave off. Her venom grew, so to speak, by being fed
in this manner; and she wrote one letter after another--you know her
mother was English, and she was well versed in our tongue--until
practically everyone in the parish knew a garbled version of Mrs.
Ogden's sordid little story."

"One moment, Chloe." Major Carstairs had a soldier's mind for detail.
"How did the woman know that story? I thought no one ever owned to
having heard it