* * * * *
Half an hour later Anstice came downstairs and re-entered the room where Major Carstairs sat alone over the now brightly burning fire.
"Well!" The soldier's voice was anxious. "How is the woman? Oh, and what about your arm? Was it badly hurt?"
"No--only a very slight flesh wound, and Mrs. Carstairs has kindly bound it up for me." He relinquished the subject of his own injury abruptly. "The woman is asleep now--she grew excited again, so I've given her some bromide, and she will be quiet enough for the rest of the night."
"My wife is with her?"
"Yes. Mrs. Carstairs insists on staying there for the present."
Anstice took a cigarette from the case his host held out, and Major Carstairs made a gesture towards the tantalus on the table.
"Have a peg--I'm sure you want it!"
"Well, I think I do," returned Anstice with a smile. "We had rather a tough time of it upstairs just now." He mixed himself a drink as he spoke. "Once a Southerner lets herself go the result is apt to be disastrous."
"Will she be quieter in the morning?"
"I expect so." He stood by the mantelpiece, glass in hand; and in spite of his evident fatigue it was easy to see he was quietly jubilant over the events of the night. "The Latin races have a peculiar elasticity, you know. An Englishwoman who had passed through this sort of violent brain-storm would be absolutely exhausted, worn out for days after it; but an Italian doesn't seem to feel things in the same way. They are so naturally excitable, I suppose, that a scene like this is merely an episode in the day's work; and they recover their mental poise much more rapidly than persons of a more phlegmatic temperament would be likely to do."
"Then you think she may be--more or less--normal in the morning?"
"I daresay--a bit dazed, perhaps, but I don't think you need fear a repetition of to-night's scene. Of course she ought not to be left alone--in case she tries to scoot; but if you are staying in the house----" He paused interrogatively.
"I am staying," returned Major Carstairs quietly. "Thanks to you the cloud has lifted from our home; and since my wife is generous enough to forgive me for my unwarrantable doubt of her----"
He broke off, for Anstice was moving forward with outstretched hand; and he guessed that the younger man was rendered uncomfortable by the turn the conversation had taken.