Although he admitted to himself that he had absolutely no grounds for believing that Anstice had been in love with Iris he could never rid himself of the notion; and in any case he felt quite certain that Anstice had no warmer feeling for Mrs. Carstairs than a very genuine and chivalrous friendliness.
Watching the younger man as he stood with bent head examining the papers Sir Richard was struck by the change in Anstice's face during the last few months. Always thin, it was now positively haggard, and the black hair which clustered round his brow was touched, here and there, with grey. Yet the effect was not one of age. He could hardly be said to look older than his years; but there was a look of something more painful than a premature ageing would have been--a look of suffering, of bitter experience impatiently borne, of a mental conflict which had drawn lines round the fine lips, and given an air of hopeless weariness to the deep-set eyes.
And Sir Richard, watching, wondered again--this time uneasily--whether the marriage of his beloved little daughter to Bruce Cheniston had proved yet another trouble for this man's already burdened spirit to bear.
Sir Richard had, of course, no idea of the remorse with which Anstice remembered that terrible scene on the eve of Iris' wedding day, when Cheniston and the girl he was to marry on the morrow had come to him for help; and had found him in no fit state to render aid to any human being.
That fact alone, the fact that, as he had said bitterly to Chloe Carstairs, he had failed a child in her need, would have been sufficient to fill Anstice with a very real and deep regret for his own most lamentable failure; but added to that was the other and still more deplorable fact that it had been Iris Wayne who had seen his condition; and although she had uttered no word of reproach he told himself hopelessly that now he must have fallen very low in her estimation. And the idea that Iris must scorn him in her heart, however charitably she might strive to think of him, was a terrible one to the man who had fought so heroically for her sake to overcome his weakness, and had failed only when it had seemed to him that his failure--now--could mean nothing to the girl he loved.
* * * * *
As Sir Richard watched him, rather uneasily, Anstice turned to him suddenly.
"I say, Sir Richard, I'm pretty sure these letters are both written by one hand! Look, these two 'a's are identical, and the capital 'D' is absolutely similar in both."