The Shadow of Ashlydyat Part 49

"Let us take a stroll," he said, later in the evening.

Their stroll took them towards the scene of the night before, Mr.

Verrall's being the moving _will_. "Shall we see who's there?" he said, with great apparent indifference.

George answered as indifferently: but there was an undercurrent of meaning in his tone, wonderful for careless George G.o.dolphin. "Better keep out of temptation."

Mr. Verrall laughed till the tears came into his eyes: he said George made him laugh. "Come along," cried he, mockingly. "I'll take care of you."

That night George played. A little. "As well put a gold piece down," Mr.

Verrall whispered to him; "I shall." George staked more than one gold piece; and won. A fortnight had gone over since then, and George G.o.dolphin had become imbued with the fearful pa.s.sion of gambling. At any rate, imbued with it temporarily: it is to be hoped that he will leave it behind him when he leaves Homburg.

Just look at him, as he stands over that green cloth, with a flushed face and eager eyes! He is of finer form, of loftier stature than most of those who are crowding round the tables; his features betray higher intellect, greater refinement; but the same pa.s.sions are just now distorting them. Mr. Verrall is by his side, cool, calm, impa.s.sive: somehow, that man, Verrall, always wins. If he did not, he would not lose his coolness: he would only leave the tables.

"_Rouge_," called George.

It was _noir_. George flung his last money on the board, and moved away.

Mr. Verrall followed him. "Tired already?"

Mr. George let slip a furious word. "The luck has been against me all along; almost from the first night I played here. I am cleaned out again."

"I can let you have----"

"Thank you!" hastily interrupted George. "You are very accommodating, Verrall, but it seems we may go on at the same thing for ever: I losing, and you finding me money. How much is it that I owe you altogether?"

"A bagatelle. Never mind that."

"A _bagatelle_!" repeated George. "It's well money is so valueless to you: _I_ don't call it one. And I have never been a man given to looking at money before spending it."

"You can pay me when and how you like. This year, next year, the year after: I shan't sue you for it," laughed Mr. Verrall. "There! go and redeem your luck."

He held out a heavy roll of notes to George. The latter's eager fingers clutched them: but, even as they were within his grasp, better thoughts came to him. He pushed them back again.

"I am too deeply in your debt already, Verrall."

"As you please," returned Mr. Verrall, with indifference. "There the notes are, lying idle. As to what you have had, if it's so dreadful a burden on your conscience, you can give me interest for it. You can let the princ.i.p.al lie, I say, though it be for ten years to come. One half-hour's play with these notes may redeem all you have lost."

He left the notes lying by George G.o.dolphin--by hesitating George--with the fierce pa.s.sion to use them that was burning within him. Mr. Verrall could not have taken a more efficient way of inducing him to play again, than to affect this easy indifference, and to leave the money under his eyes, touching his fingers, fevering his brain. George took up the notes.

"You are sure you will let me pay you interest, Verrall?"

"Of course I will."

And George walked off to the gaming-table.

He went home later that night than he had gone at all, wiping the perspiration from his brow, lifting his face to the quiet stars, and gasping to catch a breath of air. Mr. Verrall found it rather cool, than not; shrugged his shoulders, and said he could do with an overcoat; but George felt stifled. The roll had _gone_; and more to it had gone; and George G.o.dolphin was Mr. Verrall's debtor to a heavy amount.

"Thank goodness the day has already dawned!" involuntarily broke from George.

Mr. Verrall looked at him for an explanation. He did not understand what particular cause for thankfulness there should be in that.

"We shall get away from the place to-day," said George. "If I stopped in it I should come to the dogs."

"Nothing of the sort," cried Mr. Verrall. "Luck is safe to turn some time. It's like the tide, it has its time for flowing in, and its time for flowing out; once let it turn, and it comes rushing in all one way.

But, what do you mean about going? Your wife is not well enough to travel yet."

"Yes she is," was George's answer. "Quite well enough."

"Of course you know best. I think you should consider----"

"Verrall, I should consider my wife's health and safety before any earthly thing," interrupted George. "We might have started to-day, had we liked: I speak of the day that has gone: the doctor said yesterday that she was well enough to travel."

"I was not aware of that. I shall remain here a week longer."

"And I shall be away before to-morrow night."

"Not you," cried Mr. Verrall.

"I shall: if I keep in the mind I am in now."

Mr. Verrall smiled. He knew George was not famous for keeping his resolutions. In the morning, when his smarting should be over, he would stay on, fast enough. They wished each other good night, and George turned into his hotel.

To his great surprise, Margery met him on the stairs. "Are you walking the house as the ghosts do?" cried he, with a renewal of his good-humour. Nothing pleased George better than to give old Margery a joking or a teasing word. "Why are you not in bed?"

"There's enough ghosts in the world, it's my belief, without my personating them, sir," was Margery's answer. "I'm not in bed yet, because my mistress is not in bed."

"Your mistress not in bed!" repeated George. "But that is very wrong."

"So it is," said Margery. "But it has been of no use my telling her so.

She took it into her head to sit up for you; and sit up she has. Not there, sir"--for he was turning to their sitting-room--"she is lying back in the big chair in her bedroom."

George entered. Maria, white and wan and tired, was lying back, as Margery expressed it, in the large easy-chair. She was too fatigued, too exhausted to get up: she only held out her hand to her husband.

"My darling, you know this is wrong," he gently said, bending over her.

"Good heavens, Maria! how ill and tired you look!"

"I should not have slept had I gone to bed," she said. "George, tell me where you have been: where it is that you go in an evening?"

A misgiving crossed George G.o.dolphin's mind--that she already knew where. She looked painfully distressed, and there was a peculiar significance in her tone, but she spoke with timid deprecation. His conscience told him that the amus.e.m.e.nt he had been recently pursuing would not show out well in the broad light of day. An unmarried man may send himself to ruin if it pleases him to do it; but not one who has a.s.sumed the responsibilities of George G.o.dolphin. Ruin, however, had not yet come to George G.o.dolphin, or fear of ruin. The worst that had happened was, that he had contracted a debt to Mr. Verrall, which he did not at present see his way clear to paying. He could not refund so large a sum out of the bank without the question being put by his partners, Where does it go to? Mr. Verrall had relieved him of the embarra.s.sment by suggesting interest. A very easy settling of the question it appeared to the careless mind of George G.o.dolphin: and he felt obliged to Mr.

Verrall.

"Maria!" he exclaimed, "what are you thinking of? What is the matter?"

Maria changed her position. She let her head glide from the chair on to his sheltering arm. "Mrs. Verrall frightened me, George. Will you be angry with me if I tell you? She came in this evening, and she said you and Mr. Verrall were losing all your money at the gaming-table."

George G.o.dolphin's face grew hot and angry, worse than it had been in the gambling-room, and mentally he gave Mrs. Verrall an exceedingly uncomplimentary word. "What possessed her to say that?" he exclaimed.

And in truth he wondered what could have possessed her. Verrall, at any rate, was not losing his money. "Were you so foolish as to believe it, Maria?"

"Only a little of it, George. Pray forgive me! I am weak just now, you know, and things startle me. I have heard dreadful tales of these foreign gaming-places: and I knew how much you had been out at night since we came here. It is not so, is it, George?"