rong-box
down to his carriage, and then cried in a loud voice, 'When will you
hand over to me your house and effects, Signor Vertua?'

"Vertua hastily picked himself up from the ground and said in a firm
voice, 'Now, at once--this moment, Chevalier; come with me.'

"'Good,' replied the Chevalier, 'you may ride with me as far as your
house, which you shall leave tomorrow for good.'

"All the way neither of them spoke a single word, neither Vertua nor
the Chevalier. Arrived in front of the house in the Rue St. Honore,
Vertua pulled the bell; an old woman opened the door, and on perceiving
it was Vertua cried, 'Oh! good heavens, Signor Vertua, is that you at
last? Angela is half dead with anxiety on your account.'

"'Silence,' replied Vertua. 'God grant she has not heard this unlucky
bell! She is not to know that I have come.' And therewith he took the
lighted candle out of the old woman's hand, for she appeared to be
quite stunned, and lighted the Chevalier up to his own room.

"'I am prepared for the worst,' said Vertua. 'You hate, you despise me,
Chevalier. You have ruined me, to your own and other people's joy; but
you do not know me. Let me tell you then that I was once a gambler like
you, that capricious Fortune was as favourable to me as she is to you,
that I travelled through half Europe, stopping everywhere where high
play and the hope of large gains enticed me, that the piles of gold
continually increased in my bank as they do in yours. I had a true and
beautiful wife, whom I neglected, and she was miserable in the midst of
all her magnificence and wealth. It happened once, when I had set up my
bank in Genoa, that a young Roman lost all his rich patrimony at my
bank. He besought me to lend him money, as I did you to-day, sufficient
at least to enable him to travel back to Rome. I refused with a laugh
of mocking scorn, and in the insane fury of despair he thrust the
stiletto which he wore right into my breast. At great pains the
surgeons succeeded in saving me; but it was a wearying painful time
whilst I lay on the bed of sickness. Then my wife tended me, comforted
me, and kept up my courage when I was ready to sink under my
sufferings; and as I grew towards recovery a feeling began to glimmer
within me which I had never experienced before, and it waxed ever
stronger and stronger. A gambler becomes an alien to all human emotion,
and hence I had not known what was the meaning of a wife's love and
faithful atta