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"So I have heard" Anstice's tone was strictly non-colance at his iive orically denied the charges made That is to say, she implied that any such denial was, or should be, unnecessary; and it see how unsatisfactory her silence was--to others"

"Forgive e of a orical denial was unnecessary? Surely to anyone who knew her, Mrs Carstairs' silence e?"

He was almost sorry for his impulsive words when he noted their effect Major Carstairs' naturally florid coed In that moment Anstice felt that his speech, with its implied rebuke, had been both impertinent and unjust; yet he hardly kne to repair his error without coly he said nothing; and after aof an effort

"I alad to see my wife has found a champion in you," he said, with a sh as a partisan of hers you naturally think ive years--literally years--of ment of that unhappy affair!"

The note of passion in the last words ot his own delicate position in a sudden quite unusual desire to justify hiive me if I seem to you impertinent, meddlesome I know quite well that this is no business of mine, but--but I know Mrs Carstairs, and I know she has beenAnd I am sure, as sure as I am that you and I sit here to-day, that she never wrote one word of all those beastly letters--why, I can almost prove it to you, if you really care for such proof--and then----"

He stopped short, arrested by the change in Carstairs' face His eyes suddenly blazed with a new and startling fire; and the hand which had been idly playing with a glass clenched itself into a deter? If you can prove my wife to be innocent, why in God's naatory?"