onged fork for this night's work, I know!
But perhaps I shall win yet, and then I'll get a wife to sit up with
me o' nights and I won't be afeard, I won't! Here's another for'ee, my
man!" He slapped another guinea down upon the stone, and the dice-box
was rattled again.

Time passed on. Wildeve began to be as excited as Christian himself.
When commencing the game his intention had been nothing further than
a bitter practical joke on Mrs. Yeobright. To win the money, fairly
or otherwise, and to hand it contemptuously to Thomasin in her aunt's
presence, had been the dim outline of his purpose. But men are drawn
from their intentions even in the course of carrying them out, and
it was extremely doubtful, by the time the twentieth guinea had been
reached, whether Wildeve was conscious of any other intention than that
of winning for his own personal benefit. Moreover, he was now no longer
gambling for his wife's money, but for Yeobright's; though of this fact
Christian, in his apprehensiveness, did not inform him till afterwards.

It was nearly eleven o'clock, when, with almost a shriek, Christian
placed Yeobright's last gleaming guinea upon the stone. In thirty
seconds it had gone the way of its companions.

Christian turned and flung himself on the ferns in a convulsion of
remorse, "O, what shall I do with my wretched self?" he groaned. "What
shall I do? Will any good Heaven hae mercy upon my wicked soul?"

"Do? Live on just the same."

"I won't live on just the same! I'll die! I say you are a--a----"

"A man sharper than my neighbour."

"Yes, a man sharper than my neighbour; a regular sharper!"

"Poor chips-in-porridge, you are very unmannerly."

"I don't know about that! And I say you be unmannerly! You've got money
that isn't your own. Half the guineas are poor Mr. Clym's."

"How's that?"

"Because I had to gie fifty of 'em to him. Mrs. Yeobright said so."

"Oh?... Well, 'twould have been more graceful of her to have given them
to his wife Eustacia. But they are in my hands now."

Christian pulled on his boots, and with heavy breathings, which could be
heard to some distance, dragged his limbs together, arose, and tottered
away out of sight. Wildeve set about shutting the lantern to return to
the house, for he deemed it too late to go to Mistover to meet his wife,
who was to be driven home in the captain's four-wheel. While he was
closing the little horn door a figure rose from behind a neighbouring
bush