flung back into my seat with a curse, resolute to show him I
was as good a man as he. My grim-faced guardian angel washed his hands of
me with a Scotch proverb.

"He that will to Cupar maun to Cupar. The lad will have to gang his ain
gate," I heard him tell Wolfe as they strolled away.

Still the luck held against me. Before I rose from the table two hours
later I wrote out notes for a total so large that I knew the Grange must
be mortgaged to the roof to satisfy it.

Volney lolled in his chair and hid a yawn behind tapering pink
finger-nails. "'Slife, you had a cursed run of the ivories to-night, Kenn!
When are you for your revenge? Shall we say to-morrow? Egad, I'm ready to
sleep round the clock. Who'll take a seat in my coach? I'm for home."

I pushed into the night with a burning fever in my blood, and the waves of
damp mist which enveloped London and beat upon me, gathering great drops
of moisture on my cloak, did not suffice to cool the fire that burnt me
up. The black dog Care hung heavy on my shoulders. I knew now what I had
done. Fool that I was, I had mortgaged not only my own heritage but also
the lives of my young brother Charles and my sister Cloe. Our father had
died of apoplexy without a will, and a large part of his personal property
had come to me with the entailed estate. The provision for the other two
had been of the slightest, and now by this one wild night of play I had
put it out of my power to take care of them. I had better clap a pistol to
my head and be done with it.

Even while the thought was in my mind a hand out of the night fell on my
shoulder from behind. I turned with a start, and found myself face to face
with the Scotchman Balmerino.

"Whither away, Kenneth?" he asked.

I laughed bitterly. "What does it matter? A broken gambler--a ruined
dicer-- What is there left for him?"

The Scotch Lord linked an arm through mine. I had liefer have been alone,
but I could scarce tell him so. He had been a friend of my father and had
done his best to save me from my folly.

"There is much left. All is not lost. I have a word to say to your
father's son."

"What use!" I cried rudely. "You would lock the stable after the horse is
stolen."

"Say rather that I would put you in the way of getting another horse," he
answered gravely.

So gravely that I looked at him twice before I answered:

"And I would be blithe to find a way, for split me! as things look now I
must either pistol mysel