had a good deal to do with the sending
in of the papers; not that they had led the Captain into anything
disgraceful, the compulsion to resign his commission came solely from
relatives, principally those of his wife. It was their opinion that
he worked too little and played too much, and an expensive kind of
play. That he drank too much was not said; of course, the Indian
climate and life tempted to whiskey pegs, and nature had not fitted
him for them in large quantities; still that was never cast up against
him. Enough was, however, to bring things to an end; he resigned,
relations helped to pay his debts, and he came home with the avowed
intention of getting some gentlemanly employment. Of course he never
got any, it wasn't likely, hardly possible; but he had something left
to live upon--a very small private income, a clever wife, and some
useful and conscientious relations.

Somehow the family lived, quite how in the early days no one knew;
Mrs. Polkington never spoke of it at the time, and now, mercifully,
she had forgotten part, but the struggle must have been bitter.
Herself disillusioned, her daughters mere children, her position
insecure, and her husband not yet reduced to submission, and always
prone to slip back into his old ways. But she had won through somehow,
and time had given her the compensations possible to her nature. She
was, by her own untiring efforts, a social factor now, even a social
success; her eldest daughter was engaged to a clergyman of sufficient,
if small, means, and her youngest was almost a beauty. As to the
Captain, he was still there; time had not taken him away, but it had
reduced him; he gave little trouble now even when Johnny Gillat came;
he kept so out of the way that she had almost come to regard him as a
negligible factor--which was a mistake.

Both the Captain and his friend had a great respect for Mrs.
Polkington, though both felt at times that she treated them a little
hardly. The Captain especially felt this, but he put up with it; after
all it is easier to acquiesce than to assert one's rights, and, as
Johnny pointed out, it was on the whole more comfortable, in spite of
horse-hair chairs, down in the basement than up in the drawing-room.
There was no need to make polite conversation down here, and one might
smoke, no matter how cheap the tobacco, and put one's feet up, and
really Bouquet was almost as good as a fire when you once get used to
it.

Johnny was of a conte