use of it, with anything but good 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 no good; just watch and tell me.”

Mr. Gillat said he would, though he did not like the job, and certainly was ill-fitted for it.  Julia knew that, but knew also that to discover anything she must depend a good deal upon him, unless she could by searching light upon the store of spirit which she could not help thinking her father had in or near the house.  She determined to make a systematic search; but before she did so she found time to open Mijnheer’s letter.