fixed on the cards, he felt that
every ear was listening, every eye turned upon him. He must do
something desperate to break the horrible spell, to turn the luck....
He held ace, king, knave of hearts, and knew well enough that, in sound
whist he ought to play the king. But why had Mr. Rogers led hearts? Mr.
Rogers did not often lead even from a strong suit unless it contained
at least one honour.

The Commandant risked it and finessed his knave. Miss Gabriel had been
waiting, watching him intently. Her mouth shut almost with a snap of
triumph as she put down the queen.

It was, as it happened, the one heart in her hand. She closed her
triumph, a few rounds later, by trumping the Commandant's ace and king.
Mr. Fossell looked at his partner, in sorrow rather than in anger. Mr.
Rogers laughed uproariously as he counted up the tricks.

"Double or quits, I suppose?" he suggested.

But the Commandant rose. "Your pardon, Miss Gabriel," he said, laying
his half-crown on the table, "if I play no more for money to-night.
Indeed, I was going to ask Mrs. Fossell to forgive me if I spoil one of
her quartettes by withdrawing. To tell the truth, I am not myself--a
slight dizziness----"

"A glass of hot brandy-and-water?" suggested Mr. Fossell. "Nay, then, a
thimbleful--I insist!"

The Commandant made his excuses as politely as he could, and found
himself in the street. The night was pitch-dark and the road full of
sea-fog--a fog so thick that it completely shut off the rays of the
many lighthouses twinkling around the Islands, and obscured the few
street lamps that illuminated Garland Town. A slight breeze blew up
from the west and damped his brow; for his dizziness had been something
more than a pretence, and he walked with his hat in his hand.

On such a night a stranger might well have lost his way; but the
Commandant steered for Garrison Hill without a mistake, and up the hill
towards the Barracks. Garland Town is early a-bed. He passed no one in
the streets. But in St. Hugh's, as he went by the closed door of a
cottage, half-way up the ascent, he recalled the night, years ago, of
his first arrival in the Islands. He had come a week before the
garrison expected him, and there had been no one to meet him on the
quay when he arrived in the dusk of an October evening. Darkness had
descended on the Islands before he started from the quay to climb to
his new home; and here--just here, at this doorway--he had paused to
ask his