"And they brought her in guilty?"
"Yes, and the Judge sentenced her. I don't like to accuse one of His Majesty's judges of allowing his judgment to be prejudiced by personal feeling," said Sir Richard slowly; "but it has always seemed to me that Chloe's manner--her peculiarly detached, indifferent manner, as though the case did not interest her vitally--was in some subtle fashion an affront to the man. His remarks to her seemed to me unnecessarily severe, and he certainly did not err on the side of leniency."
"I should think not! Twelve months--why, it's an Eternity!"
"What must it have seemed to that poor girl!" Sir Richard spoke pitifully. "I used to fancy she would die in prison--I could not imagine how she could support the life in there, in those degrading surroundings. You know, not only had she been lapped in luxury, as they say, all her life, but, more important still, she had been used to boundless love and affection from all around her."
"You find her much altered?"
"Yes. I can't say exactly in what the alteration consists," returned Sir Richard thoughtfully. "It's not merely a surface thing--the change goes deeper than that. I called her posée just now. Well, I don't know if that's the right word. Sometimes I think that frozen manner of hers isn't a pose after all, it's natural to her nowadays. She seems to be literally turned to stone by all she's gone through. Where she used to be all sympathy, all ardour, all life, now she's cold, frigid, passionless. The girl's barely twenty-five, but upon my soul she might be a woman of fifty for all the youth there is about her--except in her looks, and there I believe she's handsomer than ever!"
Anstice's cigar was smoked out; but there was one question he must ask before he took his leave.
"And her husband--Major Carstairs? He--I gather he was inclined to agree with the verdict?"
Sir Richard hesitated, and when he spoke there was a note of pain in his voice.
"I am sorry to say Carstairs could not bring himself to believe in his wife's innocence. He was in India at the time, you know, and only got home--on special leave--when the case was coming on. Heaven knows on what grounds he bases his doubts of her. One would have thought it impossible for a man to live with a woman like Chloe and not know her incapable of the deed. But human nature is a strange thing----" He broke off.