Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/368

358[March 12, 1869] see what is left. I think I must have out about five hundred pounds more in this frightful combat. It was no use going on from sheer stolidity, and for a fiendish wish that they should not get all. I began to stop; Grainger had long since lost all. "Give me some money," he said; "I shall go on while I have a franc left on the face of God's earth."

"There," I said calmly, "there is one last note, five hundred francs; after that the curtain may come down."

Oh, I did gasp a prayer at that awful moment. "O merciful God," I said, "have pity, have mercy, see what depends on this and spare me, save me—the most abject and guilty of your creatures, and I swear——" It came up "premier," as if to mock me, and I fell back almost from the table.

Grainger had caught me by the arm. "You are not going, after all that money thrown away? Are you mad, or half-witted, or do you want to be hung? Come back, you fool; I tell you it must come in the next two or three times."

"Not another franc shall they get," I said, looking at him desperately. "Let me go home—anything, or let me fall down here and die among these villains."

A sudden rustle and half ejaculation. The click, and the sharp voice of the croupier, "!" It had come at last, like the shower of rain, long prayed for in the desert.

"You fool," whispered Grainger, "you deserve it!" 

 shower of rain, indeed, on every spot, save my dry, dusty heart. It was a pile of gold, and the paying out took long. I could look on. I saw it all done, then walked out into the open air. Not to think of what was to be done. Ah! There was nothing to be done, but to get away, to go through the first necessary process of shutting out all sympathies, affection. Dora,—I have finished with all that, now and for evermore. Oh, is there pity in heaven, or indulgence or mercy? No, no—that was no chance that made me stop exactly at that moment. It was design, punishment. I was handed over to those vile torturers. My God in Heaven, what have I done to deserve all this? What wretch, the vilest of sinners, could be punished, crushed, destroyed for ever, with such refined tortures.

. . .. I heard steps behind me. It was Grainger tramping up to me. His eyes were full of fury and impatience.

"A nice business you have made of it," he said. "What have you lost of the money that was entrusted to you?" I did not answer. "I say, what have you lost of the stolen money—half?"

"Say nearly all," I replied. "The world will know pretty soon."

"I daresay. And to think that you might have it all in your pocket now. Does that add to your reflections?"

"Don't weary me now, Grainger," I said; "let me go home."

"Don't weary you! And all the fine preaching, the prayers! This is the end of it! Lecturing me! Infernal effrontery, by God!"

"You are right, Grainger. It was effrontery, and hypocrisy also."

"And so clever, too, with your directions and advice, and superior knowledge of the game. Clever, indeed," he added, with growing fury. "So you thought yourself all your life, and when you beat me about her. By God I have beaten you this time, and beaten you well! Time brings round everything if we only wait."

Nothing could astonish me, or disturb me now; but I looked at him steadily.

"Oh, you may look as you will, but I planned it well. Planned it, every step of it, from the first day to the present. Were you fool enough to think I could forgive you, or forget you, or forget her? By Heaven, though, I never thought it would end in this way, I never dreamed it would end so satisfactorily. Go home now and sleep, my friend; Zero did it for me."

So I am fool as well as villain, and am a little surprised. But the close of all which must come— And here I find a square envelope, large and with "Services Télégraphiques" written on it. Not ill! Not dead! Oh that would be the real terror and misfortune. No. .. .. It shall go in here, and take its place in this odd record.

"I have just heard that Mr. Bernard leaves to-morrow morning suddenly, and they tell me is going to Germany, about some money transaction. I think it right to tell you this. What can it mean? O, do be careful. I shall write to-night. "Your ."

This is better—things are improving. I am glad he suspects, and is coming. Grainger, I suppose, wrote to tell him. I shall give myself up to him, to do as he likes with, or—who knows what may happen before he comes. . . .. It is not cruelty to abandon her. If I stayed she must be abandoned all the same. The jail—the dock before that was reached, it would all