has come so far? What do you think, Hillyard? I
suppose I ought to see him for a moment--yes." Sir Chichester raised his
voice in a sharp cry which contrasted vividly with the deliberative
sentences preceding it. "Harper! Harper!" and Harper reappeared. "I have
been thinking about it, Harper. The unfortunate man may lose his whole
morning if I don't see him. We all agree that to send him away would be
unkind."

"He has gone, sir."

"Gone?" exclaimed Sir Chichester testily. "God bless my soul! Did he
seem disappointed, Harper?"

"Not so much disappointed, sir, as, if I may utilise a vulgarism, struck
of all a heap, sir."

"That will do, Harper," said Millie Splay, and Harper again retired.

"Struck all of a heap!" said Sir Chichester sadly. "Well he might be!"
He looked up and caught Harry's eye. "They say, Luttrell, that breaking
a habit is only distressing during the first few days. With each refusal
of the mind to yield, the temptation diminishes in strength. I believe
that to be so, Luttrell."

"It is very likely, sir," Harry replied.

Harper seemed to be perpetually in and out of the library that morning.
For he appeared with a little oblong parcel in his hand. Sir Chichester
did not notice the parcel. He sprang up, and with a distinct note of
eager pleasure in his voice, he cried:

"He has come back! Then I really think----"

"No, sir," Harper interrupted. "These are cigarettes."

"Oh, yes," Hillyard stepped forward and took the parcel from the table.
"I had run out, so I sent to Midhurst for a box."

"Oh, cigarettes!" Sir Chichester's voice sagged again. He contemplated
the little parcel swinging by a loop of string from Martin's finger. His
face became a little stern. "That's a bad habit, Hillyard," he observed,
shaking his head. "It will grow on you--nicotine poisoning may supervene
at any moment. You had better begin to break yourself of it at once. I
think so."

"Chichester!" cried Millie Splay. "What in the world are you doing?"

Sir Chichester was gently but firmly removing the parcel from Martin's
hands, whilst Martin himself looked on, paralysed by the aggression.

"A little strength of character, Hillyard.... You saw me a minute
ago.... The first few days, I believe, are trying."

Martin sought to retrieve his cigarettes, but Sir Chichester laid them
aside upon a high mantelpiece, as if Hillyard were a child and could not
reach them.

"No, don't disappoint me, Hillyard! I am sure that