Afterwards

And looking at her, with her air of cold indifference, of complete detachment from the world around her, Anstice agreed that he would not expect her to be the confidante of such a woman.

"Yet within a month of our meeting Laura Ogden had confided her secret to me--and a silly, futile story it was." Her pale face looked disdain at the remembrance. "No harm, of course, was done. I kept her secret and advised her not to repeat what she had told me to anyone else in Littlefield."

"She followed your advice?" Anstice had no idea what was coming, but an interest to which he had long been a stranger was waking slowly in his heart.

"Chi lo so?" She shrugged her shoulders. "Afterwards she swore she had told no one but me. You see it appeared she very soon regretted having given me her confidence. It happened that shortly after she had told me her story we had--not a quarrel, because to tell you the truth I wasn't sufficiently interested in her to quarrel with her--but there was a slight coolness between us, and for some time we were not on good terms. Then--well, to cut a long story short, one day anonymous letters and post cards began to fly about the parish, bearing scurrilous comments on that unhappy woman's past history. At first the Vicar tried to hush up the matter, but as you may imagine"--her voice rang with delicate scorn--"everyone else thoroughly enjoyed talking things over and wondering and discussing--with the result that the Bishop of the Diocese heard the tale and came down to hold a private inquiry into the matter."

She stopped short and held out her hand for his cup.

"More tea? I haven't finished yet."

"No more, thank you." He rose, placed his cup on the tray and sat down again in silence.

"The Bishop suggested it was a matter for the police. The writer of those vile communications must be discovered and punished at all costs, he said. So not only the authorities but all the amateur detectives of both sexes in the neighbourhood went to work to find the culprit. And I was the culprit they found."

"You?" For once in his life Anstice was startled out of his usual self-control.

"Yes. They fixed upon me as the anonymous writer of those loathsome scrawls; and the district was provided with a sensation after its own heart."

"But the idea's absurd--monstrous!" Looking at her as she leaned back among her cushions, with her air of delicate distinction, Anstice could hardly believe the story she was telling him.