s of the hour, her
loneliness, and the infelix reputation of the man before her, she was
at least a safe one. And I fear the very consciousness of this
scarcely relieved her embarrassment....

"I wanted to ask ye a favor about Mr.--about--Jack Folinsbee," began
Peg hurriedly. "He's ailin' agin, and is mighty low. And he's losin' a
heap o' money here and thar, and mostly to you. You cleaned him out of
two thousand dollars last night--all he had."

"Well?" said the gambler coldly.

"Well, I thought as you woz a friend o' mine, I'd ask ye to let up a
little on him," said Peg with an affected laugh. "You kin do it.
Don't let him play with ye."

"Mistress Margaret Moffat," said Jack with lazy deliberation, taking off
his watch and beginning to wind it up, "ef you're that much stuck after
Jack Folinsbee, you kin keep him off of me much easier than I kin. You're a
rich woman. Give him enough money to break my bank, or break himself for
good and all; but don't keep him foolin' round me in hopes to make a raise.
It don't pay, Mistress Moffat--it don't pay!"...

"When Jim Byways left me this yer property," she began, looking
cautiously around, "he left it to me on conditions; not conditions ez
waz in his written will, but conditions ez waz spoken. A promise I
made him in this very room, Mr. Hamlin--this very room, and on that
very bed you're sittin' on, in which he died."

Like most gamblers, Mr. Hamlin was superstitious. He rose hastily from
the bed, and took a chair beside the window. The wind shook it as if
the discontented spirit of Mr. Byways were without, reenforcing his
last injunction.

"I don't know if you remember him," said Peg feverishly. "He was a man
ez hed suffered. All that he loved--wife, fammerly, friends--had gone
back on him. He tried to make light of it afore folks; but with me,
being a poor gal, he let himself out. I never told anybody this. I
don't know why he told me; I don't know," continued Peggy with a
sniffle, "why he wanted to make me unhappy too. But he made me promise
that if he left me his fortune, I'd never, never--so help me
God!--never share it with any man or woman that I loved. I didn't
think it would be hard to keep that promise then, Mr. Hamlin, for I
was very poor, and hedn't a friend nor a living bein' that was kind to
me but him."

"But you've as good as broken your promise already," said Hamlin.
"You've given Jack money, as I know."

"Only what I made myself. Listen to me, Mr