f
nursing the child, and I accordingly installed a nurse."

"Yes, I remember--a bonny girl, with a voice as soft as the coo of a
wood-pigeon."

"Just so. Well, I--or rather Mrs. Carstairs--had a pitched battle with
Tochatti before she would consent to Nurse Trevor being engaged; and the
girl herself told me that the woman did her very best to make her life
unbearable while she was at Cherry Orchard."

"The deuce she did! But if she were really incapacitated----"

"She was; but with the unreasonableness of women--some women," he
corrected himself hastily, "she resented her enforced helplessness, and
looking back I can recall very well how she used to scowl at me when I
visited Cherry."

"Really! You're not imagining it?"

"I'm not an imaginative person," returned Anstice dryly. "I assure you
it was no fancy of mine. She used to answer any questions I put to her
with a most irritating sullenness; and once or twice even Mrs. Carstairs
reproved her--before me--for her unpleasant manner."

"You think that would be sufficient to account for the animus against
you displayed in these letters?"

"Honestly, I do. You see, luckily or unluckily, the child took a great
fancy to Nurse Trevor; and being ill and consequently rather spoilt, she
behaved capriciously towards her former beloved Tochatti--with the
result that the woman hated the nurse--and hated me the more for having
introduced her into the household."

Sir Richard nodded meditatively.

"Yes. I see. It hangs together, certainly, and it is quite a feasible
explanation. But what about the nurse? She would be the one against whom
Tochatti might be expected to wreak her spite----"

"Yes, but you see Nurse Trevor was only a bird of passage, so to speak.
She had come down here from a private nursing home in Birmingham, and
had just finished nursing a case when I wanted her; and after Cherry was
better she returned to Birmingham; so that the woman would probably have
had a good deal of trouble in getting on her track."

"Quite so. You, being at hand, were a more likely victim. Upon my soul,
it almost looks as though you were right. Still, even this does not
explain why she should ruin Chloe's life."

"No, I admit that. But don't you think if we could bring this last
crime--for it is a crime--home to the Italian woman we could wring a
confession out of her concerning the first series of letters?"

"Yes, that is quite possible. The question is, How are we going to