od result. Julia, marking
the disimprovement in his health, thought it was the natural course
and saved him all work, carrying out the doctor's instructions more
carefully than ever. The hidden whisky remained unknown to her, for
although in the larger affairs of duplicity and diplomacy she easily
outmatched her father, in matters requiring small cunning he was much
nearer her equal. In this one he showed almost preternatural skill;
his whole heart was in it, and his wits, where it was concerned, were
sharpened above the average; he clung to his secret as a man clings to
his one chance of life, made only the more pertinacious by the
contrary advice he had received. But on that November morning, after
Julia had brought her father round by the proper remedies, she began
to have suspicions. They were not founded on anything definite; she
could not imagine how he should have got stimulant, and his condition
hardly justified her in suspecting it, yet she did. And Captain
Polkington knew by experience that that was enough to prove
unpleasant; it did not matter much at which end Julia got hold of his
affairs, she had a knack of arriving at the middle before he was at
all ready for her. He resented what she said to him that morning very
much indeed. He denied everything and defended himself well; although
he was in fear all the time that some unwary word or unwise denial
should betray him to his cross-examiner who, being herself no mean
expert in the double-dealing arts, could frequently learn as much from
a lie as from the truth. In the end, what between anxiety and
annoyance, he lost control of his temper and from peevish irritability
broke out suddenly into a fit of weak ungovernable rage. Julia was
obliged at once to desist, seeing with regret that she had
transgressed one of the doctor's rules and excited the patient very
much indeed.

She left him to recover control of himself and went to look for Mr.
Gillat.

"Johnny," she said, when she found him. "I believe father has got
whisky. I don't know where, but I shall have to find out; you must
help me."

Johnny professed his willingness, looking puzzled and unhappy; he
looked so at times, again now, for even he had begun to discern a
shadow coming on the life which for a year had been so happy to him.

"You will have to keep a watch on father," Julia said. "He won't do
much while I am watching; he will wait till he is alone with you.
Don't try to prevent him; that is n