"More tea? I haven't finished yet."
"No more, thank you." He rose, placed his cup on the tray and sat down again in silence.
"The Bishop suggested it was a matter for the police. The writer of those vile communications must be discovered and punished at all costs, he said. So not only the authorities but all the amateur detectives of both sexes in the neighbourhood went to work to find the culprit. And I was the culprit they found."
"You?" For once in his life Anstice was startled out of his usual self-control.
"Yes. They fixed upon me as the anonymous writer of those loathsome scrawls; and the district was provided with a sensation after its own heart."
"But the idea's absurd—monstrous!" Looking at her as she leaned back among her cushions, with her air of delicate distinction, Anstice could hardly believe the story she was telling him.
"So I thought at first." Her blue eyes narrowed. "But in some marvellous manner they brought the charge home to me. I was the only one, they said, who knew the story. I had wormed it out of the silly woman, they alleged, and had then, owing to the subsequent coolness between us, traded upon my knowledge in order to drive her out of the place."
"But others must have known the story?"
"Yes. But I was the only one in Littlefield who knew it."
"So they said. But in reality——"