“Say, auntie, you’ve observed uncle lately—­I mean how strange he is?  You’ve noticed how often, now, he is—­is not himself?”

“Whisky,” said the old lady, uncompromisingly.  “Yes, dear, I have.  It is quite the usual thing to smell’ old man Smith’s vile liquor when John Allandale is about.  I’m glad you’ve spoken.  I did not like to say anything to you about it.  John’s on a bad trail.”

“Yes, and a trail with a long, downhill gradient,” replied Jacky, with a rueful little smile.  “Say, aunt,” she went on, springing suddenly to her feet and confronting the old lady’s mildly-astonished gaze, “isn’t there anything we can do to stop him?  What is it?  This poker and whisky are ruining him body and soul.  Is the whisky the result of his losses?  Or is the madness for a gamble the result of the liquor?”

“Neither the one—­nor the other, my dear.  It is—­Lablache.”

The older woman bent over her darning, and the needle passed, rippling, round a “potato” in the sock which was in her lap.  Her eyes were studiously fixed upon the work.

“Lablache—­Lablache!  It is always Lablache, whichever way I turn.  Gee—­but the whole country reeks of him.  I tell you right here, aunt, that man’s worse than scurvy in our ranching world.  Everybody and everything in Foss River seems to be in his grip.”

“Excepting a certain young woman who refuses to be ensnared.”

The words were spoken quite casually.  But Jacky started.  Their meaning was driven straight home.  She looked down upon the bent, gray head as if trying to penetrate to the thought that was passing within.  There was a moment’s impressive silence.  The clock ticked loudly in the silence of the room.  A light wind was whistling rather shrilly outside, round the angles of the house.

“Go on, auntie,” said the girl, slowly.  “You haven’t said enough—­yet.  I guess you’re thinking mighty—­deeply.”

Mrs. Abbot looked up from her work.  She was smiling, but behind that smile there was a strange gravity in the expression of her eyes.

“There is nothing more to say at present.”  Then she added, in a tone from which all seriousness had vanished, “Hasn’t Lablache ever asked you to marry him?”

A light was beginning to dawn upon the girl.

“Yes—­why?”

“I thought so.”  It was now Mrs. Abbot’s turn to rise and confront her companion.  And she did so with the calm manner of one who is assured that what she is about to say cannot be refuted.  Her kindly face had lost nothing of its sweet expression, only there was something in it which seemed to be asking a mute question, whilst her words conveyed the statement of a case as she knew it.  “You dear, foolish people.  Can you not see what is going on before your very eyes, or must a stupid old woman like myself explain what is patent to the veriest fool in the settlement?  Lablache is the source of your uncle’s trouble, and, incidentally,