r else ...

"Nay! nay! I've had enough," said Lord Walterton, nodding a heavy head
up and down, "there are too many of my bills about as it is.... I've had
enough."

"Methinks, of a truth," said Lambert decisively, "that the game has
indeed lasted long enough.... And if some other gentleman would but take
my place ..."

He made a movement as if to rise from the table, but was checked by a
harsh laugh and a peremptory word from Segrave.

"Impossible," said the latter, "you, Master Lambert, cannot leave off in
any case.... My lord ... another hand ..." he urged again.

"Nay! nay! my dear Segrave," replied Lord Walterton, shaking himself
like a sleepy dog, "the game hath ceased to have any pleasure for me, as
our young friend here hath remarked.... I wish you good luck ... and
good-night."

Whereupon he turned on his heel and straddled away to another corner of
the room, away from the temptation of that green-covered table.

"We two then, Master Lambert," said Segrave with ever-growing
excitement, "what say you? Double or quits?"

And he pointed, with that same febrile movement of his, to the heap of
gold standing on the table beside Lambert.

"As you please," replied the latter quietly, as he pushed the entire
pile forward.

Segrave dealt, then turned up his card.

"Ten!" he said curtly.

"Mine is a knave," rejoined Lambert.

"How do we stand?" queried the other, as with a rapid gesture he passed
a trembling hand over his burning forehead.

"Methinks you owe me a hundred pounds," replied Richard, who seemed
strangely calm in the very midst of this inexplicable and volcanic
turmoil which he felt was seething all round him. He had won a hundred
pounds--a fortune in those days for a country lad like himself; but for
the moment the thought of what that hundred pounds would mean to him and
to his brother Adam, was lost in the whirl of excitement which had risen
to his head like wine.

He had steadily refused the glasses of muscadel or sack which Mistress
Endicott had insinuatingly and persistently been offering him, ever
since he began to play; yet he felt intoxicated, with strange currents
of fire which seemed to run through his veins.

The subtle poison had done its work. Any remorse which he may have felt
at first, for thus acting against his own will and better judgment, and
for yielding like a weakling to persuasion, which had no moral rectitude
for basis, was momentarily smothered by the almost child