rst utter some words of thanks. "I think you
will get it back, Mr. Grey."

"I dare say."

"I think you will. It may be that the having to pay you will keep me for
a while from the gambling-table."

"You don't look for more than that?"

"I am an unfortunate man, Mr. Grey. There is one thing that would cure
me, but that one thing is beyond my reach."

"Some woman?"

"Well;--it is a woman. I think I could keep my money for the sake of her
comfort. But never mind. Good-bye, Mr. Grey. I think I shall remember
what you have done for me." Then he went and sent the identical check to
Captain Vignolles, with the shortest and most uncourteous epistle:

"DEAR SIR,--I send you your money. Send back the note.

"Yours. M. SCARBOROUGH."

"I hardly expected this," said the captain to himself as he pocketed the
check,--"at any rate not so soon. 'Nothing venture, nothing have.' That
Moody is a slow coach, and will never do anything. I thought there'd be
a little money about with him for a time." Then the captain turned over
in his mind that night's good work with the self-satisfied air of an
industrious professional worker.

But Mr. Grey was not so well satisfied with himself, and determined for
a while to say nothing to Dolly of the two hundred and twenty-seven
pounds which he had undoubtedly risked by the loan. But his mind misgave
him before he went to sleep, and he felt that he could not be
comfortable till he had made a clean breast of it. During the evening
Dolly had been talking to him of all the troubles of all the
Carrolls,--how Amelia would hardly speak to her father or her mother
because of her injured lover, and was absolutely insolent to her, Dolly,
whenever they met; how Sophia had declared that promises ought to be
kept, and that Amelia should be got rid of; and how Mrs. Carroll had
told her in confidence that Carroll _pere_ had come home the night
before drunker than usual, and had behaved most abominably. But Mr. Grey
had attended very little to all this, having his mind preoccupied with
the secret of the money which he had lent.

Therefore Dolly did not put out her candle, and arrayed herself for bed
in the costume with which she was wont to make her nocturnal visits. She
had perceived that her father had something on his mind which it would
be necessary that he should tell. She was soon summoned, and having
seated herself on the bed, began the conversation: "I knew you would
want me to-night."

"Why so?