Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/127

Rh I swept pile after pile of silver into my pockets, Varen's white face growing whiter and whiter. At last he started to his feet—

"I'm cleared out—I have only a shilling left; I'm going home."

"Put it down," I said to him. "Why, man, you may win a pile on it yet. Finish this round, anyway."

Sullenly he sat down again and took up his cards.

I let him win game after game, and when he rose to depart he had won back a third of his losses.

"I'll come again to-morrow night and win the rest," he said, with a smile.

Why follow the downfall of that young life? Night after night we met in the same place, I hastening away from the ceaseless crying of a little, suffering child, calling for the father I had robbed her of; he from the complaints of a broken-hearted mother, powerless to draw her only son from the snare I had set for him. Night after night I robbed him of his earnings, leaving him to win back a third, to lure him with a hope, never to be fulfilled, that the next time he might win a fortune.