And as she looked, she saw him furtively take from a pocket a tabloid or capsule and slip it secretly into his mouth.
"How long have you been taking cocaine ?" she asked, suddenly.
Walter Hine flushed scarlet and turned to her with a shrinking look.
"I don't," he stammered.
"Yet you left a bottle of the drug where I found it." "That was not mine," said he, still more confused.

"That was Archie Parminter's.

He left it behind." "Yes," said Sylvia, finding here a suspicion confirmed.

"But he left it for you ?" "And if I did take it," said Hine, turning irritably to her, "what can it matter to you?
I believe that what your father says is true." "What does he say ?" "That you care for Captain Chayne, and that it's no use for any one else to think of you." Sylvia started.
"Oh, he says that!" She understood now one of the methods of the new intrigue.

Sylvia was in love with Chayne; therefore Walter Hine may console himself with cocaine.
It was not Garratt Skinner who suggested it.