An hour or so later, when the guests had departed, and Cheniston had finished a solitary pipe downstairs, he went up, yawning, to bed. Passing his sister's open door he heard her call him, and after a second's indecision he answered the summons, wondering why she were not already asleep.
Chloe was sitting by the open window, wearing a thin grey wrapper which made her look curiously pale and ethereal. Her thick hair hung in two heavy plaits over her shoulders, and in the dim light her face showed indistinctly in its silky black frame.
"Chloe, why aren't you in bed?" Bruce paused half-way across the room.
"I'm not sleepy," she said indifferently. "I often sit here half the night. Bruce"—her voice grew more alert—"have you and Dr. Anstice met before?"
"Yes," he said, "we have. But why do you ask?"
"I thought there was something rather curious about your meeting," she answered slowly. "At first I could not understand it, and then it dawned upon me that you had met—and distrusted one another—before."
"Distrusted?" He stared at her. "That isn't the right word, Chloe. We have met before—in India. I almost wonder you yourself didn't realize that fact, but I suppose you were not sufficiently interested——"
She interrupted him without ceremony.
"I? But how should I realize ... unless"—suddenly her intuition serving her as it serves so many women, she grasped the truth with a quickness which surprised even her brother—"was that the name of the man who—you don't mean it was Dr. Anstice who ... who...."