ful of gold from the bag upon the counter, sweep the ivories
into her hand, and noiselessly regain her seat. She seemed to know no one,
and no one to know her, unless it might have been the croupier, who, I
thought, watched her closely when he pushed over her winnings, parting his
lips a little wider, his smile a trifle more cringing and devilish.

At twelve o'clock she was still playing, her face like chalk, her eyes
bloodshot, her teeth clenched fast, her hair disheveled across her face.

The game went on.

When the clock reached the half-hour the man in gray pushed back his
chair, gathered up his winnings, and moved to the door, an attendant
handing him his hat. With the exception of the Parisienne, who had gone
some time before, taking her companion with her, the devotees were the
same,--the two Englishmen still exchanging clean, white Bank of England
notes, the German and Haytian losing, but calm as mummies, the fat, oily
woman, melting like a red candle, the perspiration streaming down her
face.

Suddenly I heard a convulsive gasp. The woman in black was on her feet
leaning over the table. Her eyes blazed in a frenzy of delight. She was
sweeping into her open hands the piles of gold before her. By some
marvelous stroke of luck, and with almost her last louis, she had won
every franc on the cloth!

Then she drew herself up defiantly, covered her face with her veil, hugged
the money to her breast, and staggered from the room.

II

So deep an impression had the gambling scene of the night before made upon
me that the next morning I loitered under the Noah's-ark trees, hoping I
might identify the woman, and in some impossible, improbable way know more
of her history. I even lounged into the Casino, tried the door at which I
had knocked the night before, and, finding it locked and the scrubwoman
suspicious, strolled out carelessly into the garden, and, sitting down
under the palms, tried to pick out the windows that opened into the
gaming-room. But they were all alike, with pots of flowers blooming in
each.

Still burdened with these memories, I entered the church,--the old church
with square towers and deep-receding entrance, that stands on the crest of
a steep hill overlooking the Casino, and within a short distance of the
Noah's-ark trees. Every afternoon, near the hour of twilight, when the
shadows reach down Mount Pilatus, and the mists gather in the valley, a
broken procession of strollers, in twos and