."

We were arrived at the door of his lodgings, a mean house in a shabby
neighbourhood, for my Lord was as poor as a church mouse despite his
title. I left him here, and the last words I called over my shoulder to
him were,

"Remember, I promise nothing."

It may be surmised that as I turned my steps back toward my rooms in
Arlington Street I found much matter for thought. I cursed the folly that
had led me to offer myself a dupe to these hawks of the gaming table. I
raged in a stress of heady passion against that fair false friend Sir
Robert Volney. And always in the end my mind jumped back to dally with
Balmerino's temptation to recoup my fallen fortunes with one desperate
throw.

"Fraoch! Dh 'aindeoin co theireadh e!" (The Heath! Gainsay who dare!)

The slogan echoed and reechoed through the silent streets, and snatched me
in an instant out of the abstraction into which I had fallen. Hard upon
the cry there came to me the sound of steel ringing upon steel. I legged
it through the empty road, flung myself round a corner, and came plump
upon the combatants. The defendant was a lusty young fellow apparently
about my own age, of extraordinary agility and no mean skill with the
sword. He was giving a good account of himself against the four assailants
who hemmed him against the wall, his point flashing here and there with
swift irregularity to daunt their valiancy. At the moment when I appeared
to create a diversion one of the four had flung himself down and forward
to cling about the knees of their victim with intent to knife him at close
quarters. The young man dared not shorten his sword length to meet this
new danger. He tried to shake off the man, caught at his white throat and
attempted to force him back, what time his sword still opposed the rest of
the villains.

Then I played my small part in the entertainment. One of the rascals
screamed out an oath at sight of me and turned to run. I pinked him in the
shoulder, and at the same time the young swordsman fleshed another of
them. The man with the knife scrambled to his feet, a ludicrous picture of
ghastly terror. To make short, in another minute there was nothing to be
seen of the cutpurses but flying feet scampering through the night.

The young gentleman turned to me with a bow that was never invented out of
France. I saw now that he was something older than myself, tall,
well-made, and with a fine stride to him that set off the easy grace of
his splendi