"That's just how the trouble began," rejoined Anstice quickly. "You remember how the child set herself on fire one night in September?"
"Yes--on the night before Iris' wedding day." In spite of himself Anstice winced, and the other man noted the fact and wondered. "Set fire to herself with a candle, didn't she?"
"Yes--and Tochatti put out the flames somehow, burning one of her hands in the process."
"Did she? I had forgotten that."
"Yes--with the result that she was not able to take her fair share of nursing the child, and I accordingly installed a nurse."
"Yes, I remember--a bonny girl, with a voice as soft as the coo of a wood-pigeon."
"Just so. Well, I--or rather Mrs. Carstairs--had a pitched battle with Tochatti before she would consent to Nurse Trevor being engaged; and the girl herself told me that the woman did her very best to make her life unbearable while she was at Cherry Orchard."
"The deuce she did! But if she were really incapacitated----"
"She was; but with the unreasonableness of women--some women," he corrected himself hastily, "she resented her enforced helplessness, and looking back I can recall very well how she used to scowl at me when I visited Cherry."
"Really! You're not imagining it?"
"I'm not an imaginative person," returned Anstice dryly. "I assure you it was no fancy of mine. She used to answer any questions I put to her with a most irritating sullenness; and once or twice even Mrs. Carstairs reproved her--before me--for her unpleasant manner."
"You think that would be sufficient to account for the animus against you displayed in these letters?"
"Honestly, I do. You see, luckily or unluckily, the child took a great fancy to Nurse Trevor; and being ill and consequently rather spoilt, she behaved capriciously towards her former beloved Tochatti--with the result that the woman hated the nurse--and hated me the more for having introduced her into the household."
Sir Richard nodded meditatively.
"Yes. I see. It hangs together, certainly, and it is quite a feasible explanation. But what about the nurse? She would be the one against whom Tochatti might be expected to wreak her spite----"
"Yes, but you see Nurse Trevor was only a bird of passage, so to speak. She had come down here from a private nursing home in Birmingham, and had just finished nursing a case when I wanted her; and after Cherry was better she returned to Birmingham; so that the woman would probably have had a good deal of trouble in getting on her track."