Afterwards

"Well, Chloe, you have discovered the truth at last?"

It was evening again--early evening this time; and Major Carstairs and Anstice were sitting in Chloe's black-and-white room eagerly waiting for the promised elucidation of the mystery which had so nearly ruined two lives.

Chloe herself, sitting in a corner of the chintz-covered couch, looked, in spite of the strenuous hours through which she had passed, the embodiment of youth and radiant happiness.

In all his life Anstice had never seen so striking a testimony to the power of soul over body as in this rejuvenation, this new birth, as it were, which had taken place under his eyes.

The whole woman was transformed. The classic features had lost their slight austerity of outline, the sapphire-blue eyes were no longer cold and indifferent, but danced bewitchingly in the softly-tinted face. The lips whose corners had been prone to droop were now curved into the tenderest, gayest smiles; and as Anstice looked at her he was reminded of the old story of the marble statue, whose frozen rigidity was warmed into life by the magic of the sculptor's kiss.

And as he gazed, secretly, on this miracle which had been performed before his eyes Anstice realized a truth which hitherto he had not suspected. Although her manner in speaking of her husband had never held the faintest tinge of resentment, nor the least hint of rancour, neither had it betrayed any touch of a warmer feeling than a half-compassionate friendliness; and Anstice had never suspected the world of feeling which apparently lay locked in her heart. He had thought her cold, self-contained, genuinely cynical. He saw her now, impulsive, gay, radiant; and he knew to what this striking, this indescribably happy change was due.

Chloe Carstairs was in love, overwhelmingly, irresistibly in love with her husband; and now Anstice was able to gauge something of the bitterness of the life she had led for the last few months. Where he had thought her cold she had been indeed suffering. Her assumed cynicism, her weary indifference had been the cloak of a sharp and almost hopeless misery; and at the thought of her heroic acceptance of her husband's unbelief, an unbelief which must have been almost unbearably galling, Anstice paid her in his heart a higher tribute than he had hitherto bestowed on any woman.

That the cloud of which Major Carstairs had spoken had indeed lifted was evident in the glances which passed shyly between the two; and as Chloe answered her husband's eager question her blue eyes rested almost tenderly on his face.

"Yes. I think the truth has come to light at last."