The doctor thought a minute.

“I saw two interesting people at Paigecourt.  One was Miss Dix, an old friend of mine; the other chanced to be Surgeon General Hammond.  They were on a tour of inspection.  I hope they liked what they saw.”

“Did they?”

“I guess not. . . .  Things in the hospitals ought to go better now.  We’re learning. . . .  By the way, you didn’t know that Ailsa Paige had been to Paigecourt, did you?”

“When?”

“Recently. . . .  She’s another fine woman.  She never had an illness worse than whooping cough.  I know because I’ve always been her physician.  Normally she’s a fine, wholesome woman, Berkley—­but she told a falsehood. . . .  You are not the only liar south of Dixon’s damnable Line!”

Berkley straightened up as though shot, and the doctor dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“The sort of lie you told, Phil, is the kind she told.  It doesn’t concern you or me; it’s between her conscience and herself; and it’s in a good safe place. . . .  And now I’ll sketch out for you what she did.  This—­this beast, Hallam, wrote to Miss Dix at Washington and preferred charges against Miss Lynden. . . .  I’m trying to speak calmly and coherently and without passion, damn it!  Don’t interrupt me. . . .  I say that Hallam sent his written evidence to Miss Dix; and Ailsa Paige learned of it, and learned also what the evidence was. . . .  And it was a terrible thing for her to learn, Phil—­a damnable thing for a woman to learn.”

He tightened his grasp on Berkley’s shoulder, and his voice was not very steady.

“To believe those charges—­that evidence—­meant the death of her faith in you. . . .  As for the unhappy revelation of what Miss Lynden had been—­the evidence was hopelessly conclusive.  Imagine what she thought!  Any other woman would have sat aloof and let justice brand the woman who had doubly betrayed her.  I want you to consider it; every instinct of loyalty, friendship, trust, modesty had apparently been outraged and trampled on by the man she had given her heart to, and by the woman she had made a friend.  That was the position in which Ailsa Paige found herself when she learned of these charges, saw the evidence, and was informed by Hallam that he had forwarded his complaint.”

His grip almost crushed Berkley’s shoulder muscles.

“And now I’ll tell you what Ailsa Paige did.  She went before Miss Dix and told her that there was not one atom of truth in the charges.  She accounted for every date specified by saying that Miss Lynden was with her at those times, that she had known her intimately for years, known her family—­that it was purely a case of mistaken identity, which, if ever pressed, would bewilder her friend, who was neither sufficiently experienced to understand what such charges meant, nor strong enough to endure the horror and shock if their nature were explained.