on; "I suppose you lost at the
races yesterday--how much?"

The Captain did not answer, he seemed overwhelmed by his troubles.
"How much?" Julia repeated, turning to Mr. Gillat.

"It was rather much," that gentleman answered apologetically.

Julia looked puzzled. "How could he have much to lose?" she asked.
"You couldn't, you know," bending her brows as she looked at her
father--"unless you borrowed--did you borrow?"

"Yes, yes," he said, rather eagerly; "I borrowed--that was it; of
course I was going to pay back--I am going to pay back."

"From whom did you borrow?" Another pause, and the question again,
then the Captain explained confusedly: "The cheque--it came a day
early--I merely meant to make use of it for the day--"

"The cheque!" Julia repeated, with dawning comprehension. "The cheque
from Slade & Slade that mother was speaking of this morning. Our
cheque, the money we have to live on for the next three months?"

"My cheque," her father said, with one last effort at dignity; "made
out to me--my income that I have a perfect right to spend as I like; I
used my own money for my own purposes."

He forgot that a moment back he had excused the act as a borrowing;
Julia did not remind him, she was too much concerned with the facts to
trouble about mere turns of speech. They, like words and motives, had
not heretofore entered much into her considerations; consequences were
what was really important to her--how the bad might be averted, how
the good drawn that way, and all used to the best advantage. This
point of view, though it leaves a great deal to be desired, has one
advantage--those who take it waste no time in lamentation or reproof.
For that reason they are perhaps some of the least unpleasant people
to confess to.

Julia wasted no words now; she sat for a brief minute, stunned by the
magnitude of the calamity which had deprived them of the largest part
of their income for the next three months; then she began to look
round in her mind to see what might be done. Captain Polkington
offered a few not very coherent explanations and excuses, to which she
did not listen, and then relapsed into silence. Johnny sat opposite,
rubbing his hands in nervous sympathy, and looking from father to
daughter; he took the silence of the one to be as hopeless as that of
the other.

"We thought," he ventured at last, tugging at the parcel now firmly
wedged in his pocket. "We hoped, that is, we thought perhaps we might