?"

"No one ever did," said Chloe rather bitterly. "But the explanation is
simple after all. Mrs. Ogden had, before I made my appearance on the
scene, repeated the tale to another woman in the parish--the young wife
of a solicitor whom she had 'taken up' with great fervour on her first
arrival in Littlefield; and this woman had repeated the story to her
French maid. The latter, being a stranger in England was pleased to make
Tochatti's acquaintance; and one day told her the story, of course in
strictest confidence. Well, the woman, the solicitor's wife, died,
almost immediately after that, as the result of a motor accident; and
her maid returned to her home somewhere in the valley of the Loire,
without having, so far as one can conjecture, passed on the tale to
anyone else."

"Yes," said Anstice thoughtfully, as Chloe came to a stop. "Quite a
simple explanation, as you say, yet one which might never have come to
light."

"There is still a point puzzling me," said Carstairs meditatively. "I
can understand Tochatti writing the letters, and thus seeking to injure
a woman whom she considered to be the enemy of her mistress. But how did
she ever bring herself to allow you to be suspected, Chloe?"

"Ah, that is where the mystery really comes in, and where, possibly, Dr.
Anstice's theory of the double personality may be considered." Chloe
looked at them both rather dubiously. "I confess I can't understand that
part of the story myself. Tochatti has assured me that she never for an
instant dreamed I should be suspected--the slight similarity in some of
the writing to some of mine was more or less accidental, though she
admits she had tried to model her script on mine because she admired
it ... as she admired all my poor faculties," said Chloe, with a little
shrug of her shoulders. "I really believe she used my pens and paper
without any idea of the harm she was doing me--in fact, if such a
supposition could be entertained for a moment, I don't believe she had
any very clear idea what she was doing beyond a fixed intention to work
harm to the woman she detested."

"You mean that the idea of this Mrs. Ogden filled her mental horizon to
the exclusion of any other thought?" It was Anstice who put the
question.

"Yes. Honestly I believe she was incapable of looking, as one might say,
all round the subject. You see"--Chloe hesitated, not sure how far the
suggestion was permissible--"she had once been in an asylum, and
possibl