For a second Anstice felt uncomfortable, but Major Carstairs probably noted his discomfort, for he turned to him with a sincerity there was no doubting.
"Look here, Dr. Anstice, you have been--luckily for us, if I may say so--mixed up in this most unsavoury affair, and from what my wife tells me I believe you are going to be the means of clearing it up--a consummation most devoutly to be wished."
Anstice's embarrassment vanished before the soldier's frankness.
"I only hope you may be right, Major Carstairs," he said, looking the other man squarely in the face. "Personally, since I intended to leave Littlefield before long in any case, these wretched slanders don't affect me much. The few friends I have made in this place are not likely to give credence to the rumour which has been spread broadcast in the last week or two--and for the rest----"
"I understand your indifference to the opinion of 'the rest,'" said Major Carstairs, smiling, "but I think it will be more satisfactory for all of us when the affair is really cleared up. But won't you sit down? Chloe tells me it is too late for tea--but you'll have a peg?"
"Not for me, thanks." Anstice was too intent on the matter in hand to turn to side issues. "If you don't mind giving me your opinion on the subject--do you think it possible that the woman Tochatti is the one to blame?"
"Well----" Major Carstairs sat down as he spoke, and since Chloe had already taken her accustomed seat in a corner of the big couch, Anstice followed their joint example. "Personally I have never been able to conquer a dislike, which I always put down as absolutely unjust and uncharitable, for the woman. I know she has served my wife faithfully, and her devotion to our little daughter has been beyond praise. But"--he smiled rather deprecatingly--"even ten years in India haven't apparently cured me of British insularity, and I have never liked foreigners--especially half-breeds such as Tochatti, Italian on one side, English on the other."
"Then you think it possible, at least, that she may be the culprit?"
"I do, quite possible. And I thank God from the bottom of my heart for the bare possibility," returned Major Carstairs deliberately, and his words and manner both served to assure Anstice that at last this man had been brought to believe, wholeheartedly, in his wife's innocence.
Anstice never knew, either then or afterwards, exactly how the miracle had come about. Indeed, so subtle are the workings of a man's heart, so complex and incomprehensible the thoughts and motives which touch a soul to finer issues, that it is quite possible Major Carstairs himself could not have told how or when he first began to realize that his judgment might well be at fault, that his own stern honesty and unflinching integrity, which would not permit him to subscribe outwardly to a belief which inwardly he did not hold, might after all have been stumbling-blocks in the way of true understanding rather than the righteous bulwarks which he had fancied them.