Sir Richard uttered an impatient exclamation.
"By Gad, what an old fool I am! I've got one of the original letters locked away in that desk now—one of the half-dozen or so which reached me when the scandal was at its height. I don't know why I kept it—God knows I hated the sight of it—but somehow I could never bring myself to destroy the thing, hoping against hope that it might some day afford a clue to the identity of the writer."
He busied himself with a bunch of keys for a moment, and finally selected one, with which he unlocked a small drawer at the back of his desk. At first his eagerness prevented him finding what he sought, but presently he brought to light another and rather worn sheet of paper, which he handed to Anstice triumphantly.
"Yes, read it, read it!" He had marked Anstice's hesitation. "The affair's been public property too long for any secrecy now. And that, after all, was a fairly innocuous screed."
Thus encouraged, Anstice ran his eye over the sheet of paper, and there read a veiled, but none the less malignant, attack on the character of Mrs. Ogden, the wife of the man who had held the living of Littlefield at the time the letter was written. In his anxiety to compare the handwriting of the two epistles Anstice barely stopped to take in the meaning of what he read; and when, in answer to his request, Sir Richard handed him the second letter he carried them both eagerly to the window and examined them carefully in the stronger light.
"Well?" Sir Richard's tone was full of sympathetic interest.
"One moment—I've got a pocket magnifying glass somewhere." He put the letters down and plunged his hand into various pockets in eager search. "Ah—here it is—and we'll jolly soon see if the game hand has been at work in both."
Watching him as he pored over the two papers Sir Richard told himself that with this man for her champion Chloe Carstairs need not fear further condemnation at the hands of a censorious or jealous world. He knew instinctively that what made Anstice so suddenly keen on discovering the authorship of the letters was not a selfish desire to rid himself of the annoyance such letters might bring upon him, but rather a determination to prove Chloe Carstairs innocent in the first instance by bringing home the guilt for both letters—or series of letters—to the right quarter.
Sir Richard made no mistake in his estimation of Anstice's chivalrous desire to right the wrong which had been done to Mrs. Carstairs. He knew quite well that to Anstice the righting of the wrong appeared in the light of a duty to the woman whom he called his friend; and that no warmer emotion animated him in regard to Chloe Carstairs than that same chivalry.
For Iris' father had not been blind to the significance of the events of the summer. Although Anstice had never betrayed his secret by word or look the other man had all along had a suspicion that Cheniston was not alone in his love for his pretty daughter; and although naturally he was ignorant of the compact entered into by the two younger men he had sometimes wondered, with just the least possible tinge of regret, why Anstice had apparently been content to leave the field to his rival.