The next day he came down the street again, but this time alone and on foot.  He stopped at No. 27, and there asked for Captain Polkington.  Julia, hearing the knock, and the visitor subsequently being ushered into the dining-room, guessed it must be Mr. Gillat, perhaps come with his parcel again; when she saw Mary she asked her.

“No, miss,” was the answer; “it’s another gentleman to see the master.”

“Who?” Julia’s mind was alert for fresh difficulties.

“Mr. Rawson-Clew.”

“I don’t know who he is,” Mary went on; “I’ve never set eyes on him before, but he’s a grand sort of gentleman; I hardly liked to put him in the dining-room, only missis’s orders was ’Mr. Gillat or any gentleman to see the master there.’”

Which was true enough, and might reasonably have been reckoned a safe order, for no one but Mr. Gillat ever did come to see the Captain.

“I hope I’ve done right,” Mary said.

“Quite right,” Julia answered, though she did not feel so sure of it.  The name and the vague description of the visitor somehow suggested to her mind the stranger who had ridden past with young Mr. Rawson-Clew.  She went up-stairs, uneasy as much from intuition as from experience.  In the hall she stood a minute.  The dining-room door did not shut too well, the lock was old and worn, and unless it was fastened carefully, it came open; the Captain never managed to fasten it, and now it stood ajar; Julia could hear something of what was said within almost as soon as she reached the top of the kitchen stairs.  The visitor spoke quietly, his words were not audible, but the Captain’s voice was raised with excitement.

“The money, sir, the money that your cousin lent—­accommodation between gentlemen—­”

So Julia heard incompletely, and then another disjointed sentence.

“Do you take me for an adventurer, a sharper?  I am a soldier, sir, a soldier and a gentleman—­at least, I was—­I mean I was a soldier, I am a gentleman—­”

Julia came swiftly up the hall, the instinct of the female to spread frail wings and protect her helpless belongings (old equally as much as young) was strong upon her.  The pushed open the dining-room door and walked in.

“Father,” she said, “is anything the matter?”

Both men turned, the stranger clearly surprised and annoyed by the interruption, the Captain for a moment thinking of pulling himself together and dismissing his daughter with a lie.  But he did not do it; he was too shaken to think quickly, also there was a sense of reinforcement in her presence; this he did not realise; indeed, he realised nothing except that she spoke again before he had collected himself.

“Is it about the money Mr. Rawson-Clew lent you?” she asked.