Afterwards

Chloe was sitting by the open window, wearing a thin grey wrapper which made her look curiously pale and ethereal. Her thick hair hung in two heavy plaits over her shoulders, and in the dim light her face showed indistinctly in its silky black frame.

"Chloe, why aren't you in bed?" Bruce paused half-way across the room.

"I'm not sleepy," she said indifferently. "I often sit here half the night. Bruce"--her voice grew more alert--"have you and Dr. Anstice met before?"

"Yes," he said, "we have. But why do you ask?"

"I thought there was something rather curious about your meeting," she answered slowly. "At first I could not understand it, and then it dawned upon me that you had met--and distrusted one another--before."

"Distrusted?" He stared at her. "That isn't the right word, Chloe. We have met before--in India. I almost wonder you yourself didn't realize that fact, but I suppose you were not sufficiently interested----"

She interrupted him without ceremony.

"I? But how should I realize ... unless"--suddenly her intuition serving her as it serves so many women, she grasped the truth with a quickness which surprised even her brother--"was that the name of the man who--you don't mean it was Dr. Anstice who ... who...."

He nodded.

"Yes. I see you've grasped the truth. Anstice is an uncommon name, and I'm surprised you did not recognize it earlier."

"I had forgotten it." She stared at him, her blue eyes narrowing as her mind worked quickly. "I see now. Dr. Anstice is the man----"

"Who shot Hilda Ryder." Cheniston finished her sentence for her calmly, but she saw him whiten beneath his tan. "Yes. He is the man all right. We met, once, in Bombay--afterwards. And now you know why our meeting to-night was not calculated to give either of us any great pleasure."

"Yes. I know now." She spoke slowly, almost meditatively. "And I know, too, why he always looks so sad. Bruce, from the bottom of my heart I pity that man."

"You do?" Bruce's eyebrows rose. "I confess I don't see why you should waste your pity on him. I think you might bestow a little more of it on me--though it is rather late for pity now."

"On you?" Slowly her blue gaze rested on his face. "Bruce, you don't compare your position with his? Surely even you can understand that he is a thousand times more to be pitied than you? I always thought there was a tragedy in Dr. Anstice's life. But I never dreamed it was quite so piteous as this."