Seeing, however, that the woman, while exhausting herself, was also distressing her mistress, he moved forward with the intention of warning Tochatti she was endangering her own health; but his word of caution was never uttered, for as he approached her she spun round with a last fierce torrent of words, and, stooping down, with incredible swiftness plucked a sharp dagger from some secret hiding-place, and lunged at Anstice with all her maddened might.

Luckily for him her excitement impeded her aim; and while she doubtless intended stabbing him to the heart she merely inflicted a flesh wound on the upper part of the arm which he had raised to defend himself.

The next moment Chloe, with a quite unlooked-for strength, had wrested the weapon from the woman's grasp; and then ensued a scene which even Anstice could hardly bear to look back upon in after days.

Whether or no his theory of possession were justified, the woman was for the time being beside herself. Seeing the dagger in Chloe's hand she threw herself upon her mistress and struggled wildly to regain her property, inflicting a series of cuts on her own hand before Chloe could get free to hurl the deadly thing into a corner of the room; and even when Anstice and Carstairs had overpowered her with their superior might she fought for freedom like a mad woman. But this abnormal strength could not continue. Suddenly, as Anstice had foreseen, the inevitable collapse occurred. Nature could stand no more, and with a last wild writhe the woman slipped through the hands which held her, and uttering a sharp cry fell to the floor in a state of unconsciousness.

Half an hour later Anstice came downstairs and re-entered the room where Major Carstairs sat alone over the now brightly burning fire.

"Well!" The soldier's voice was anxious. "How is the woman? Oh, and what about your arm? Was it badly hurt?"

"No--only a very slight flesh wound, and Mrs. Carstairs has kindly bound it up for me." He relinquished the subject of his own injury abruptly.

"The woman is asleep now--she grew excited again, so I've given her some bromide, and she will be quiet enough for the rest of the night."

"My wife is with her?"

"Yes. Mrs. Carstairs insists on staying there for the present."

Anstice took a cigarette from the case his host held out, and Major Carstairs made a gesture towards the tantalus on the table.

"Have a peg--I'm sure you want it!"

"Well, I think I do," returned Anstice with a smile. "We had rather a tough time of it upstairs just now." He mixed himself a drink as he spoke. "Once a Southerner lets herself go the result is apt to be disastrous."

"Will she be quieter in the morning?"

"I expect so." He stood by the mantelpiece, gla.s.s in hand; and in spite of his evident fatigue it was easy to see he was quietly jubilant over the events of the night. "The Latin races have a peculiar elasticity, you know. An Englishwoman who had pa.s.sed through this sort of violent brain-storm would be absolutely exhausted, worn out for days after it; but an Italian doesn't seem to feel things in the same way. They are so naturally excitable, I suppose, that a scene like this is merely an episode in the day's work; and they recover their mental poise much more rapidly than persons of a more phlegmatic temperament would be likely to do."

"Then you think she may be--more or less--normal in the morning?"

"I daresay--a bit dazed, perhaps, but I don't think you need fear a repet.i.tion of to-night's scene. Of course she ought not to be left alone--in case she tries to scoot; but if you are staying in the house----" He paused interrogatively.

"I am staying," returned Major Carstairs quietly. "Thanks to you the cloud has lifted from our home; and since my wife is generous enough to forgive me for my unwarrantable doubt of her----"

He broke off, for Anstice was moving forward with outstretched hand; and he guessed that the younger man was rendered uncomfortable by the turn the conversation had taken.

"You're going?" He wrung Anstice's hand with fervent grat.i.tude. "Well, it's late, of course--but won't you stay here for the rest of the night?

We can give you a bed in five minutes, and I'm sure my wife will be distressed if you turn out now."

"Thanks very much, but I must go." The decision in his tone was unmistakable.

"Well, I'll get out the car and run you over----"

"No, thanks. I'd really rather walk." He picked up hat and coat from the window-seat and turned to the door with an air of finality. "It's a fine night and I shall enjoy it. I'll be round early in the morning--but I don't think Tochatti will give you any trouble for a good many hours yet."

"As soon as she is able to explain matters there will be a good deal to be done," said Major Carstairs rather grimly, as they went through the hall together. "Thank G.o.d, we have that last letter as a proof of her duplicity, and by its aid we can doubtless get a full confession out of her."

"Yes." Anstice paused a second on the doorstep before plunging into the darkness of the night. "It will be interesting to hear the whole story.

The events are plain enough--but the question of motive is still a puzzling one."

"Quite so. And yet the affair will probably turn out simple, after all.

Well, I mustn't keep you if you want to be off. Good night again--and"--the sincerity in his voice was pleasant to hear--"a thousand thanks for the part you have played in the unravelling of this tangle."

"Good-night. Don't let Mrs. Carstairs exhaust herself looking after the woman, will you? She is splendid, I know, but----"

"I'll go and join her in a moment," returned Carstairs quietly. "I'm an old campaigner, you know, and I'll see to it that she is properly fortified for the vigil--if she insists upon it."

And as he looked into the soldier's square-featured face, the honest eyes agleam with love for the woman he had been fool enough to doubt, Anstice felt instinctively that Chloe Carstairs' ship had come at last to a safe anchorage, that the barque which had so narrowly escaped complete shipwreck on the rock of a terrible catastrophe was now safely at rest in the haven where it would be.

CHAPTER VIII

"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 pa.s.sed, 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 cla.s.sic 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 p.r.o.ne 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-compa.s.sionate 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 a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.sed 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."

"You mean the woman has confessed?" It was Anstice who spoke, and she turned to him at once with an animation of look and manner very different from her former languor.

"Well, as to confession I hardly know. But she has told me the whole story; and if you are both prepared to listen I will pa.s.s it on to you at once."

Sitting a little forward, her hands locked on the knee of her white gown, her blue eyes extraordinarily vivid in her softly-coloured face, she began her tale; and both men listened to her with rapt attention as her deep voice rang through the quiet room.

"It seems that years ago when Tochatti was a girl, living in a village close to Naples, she was betrothed to a handsome young Sicilian, a fisherman from Palermo. The story, as Tochatti told it, is a long and rather involved affair; but it is sufficient to say that there was another girl enamoured of Tochatti's lover; and matters were complicated still further by the fact that this girl was engaged to someone else.

Well, Luigi, Tochatti's sweetheart, had evidently encouraged the second girl behind Tochatti's back; and when Tochatti found out she was so inflamed with rage and jealousy that, overhearing of an appointment between Bella and Luigi, she wrote a note in a handwriting roughly resembling that of Bella to the latter's sweetheart, a certain Jose, bidding him meet her at the same time and place as that arranged by the other two. Well, Jose went, expecting to meet his beloved--and found her in Luigi's arms. Tragedy followed, of course. Jose first tore the girl away and then stabbed her to the heart, afterwards turning on Luigi.

They struggled--on the edge of the cliff; and Luigi proving the stronger, Jose was hurled over the edge into the sea below."

"A tragedy indeed," commented Major Carstairs as the speaker paused.

"What was the next act? Did Luigi and Tochatti become reconciled and walk off arm-in-arm?"

"No." Chloe's voice sank a little. "It seems that when Tochatti, horror-struck by the result of her interference, rushed on to the scene, Luigi turned upon her, guessing somehow that she was responsible, and taxed her with having lured Jose to the spot that night. She owned up to it, and instead of imploring forgiveness appeared to glory in her treachery, whereupon Luigi, throwing the fatal letter into her face, burst into a torrent of rage, telling her he had never cared for her, that Bella was the only girl he had ever loved, and finished up by stabbing himself before her eyes rather than endure a life from which his adored one had vanished for ever."