stayed at his elbow tonight, for opposite to him the croupier was
arranging with extraordinary deftness piles of bank-notes in the order
of their value. The bank was winning heavily. Even as Ricardo looked
Wethermill turned up "a natural," and the croupier swept in the stakes
from either side.

"Faites vos jeux, messieurs. Le jeu est fait?" the croupier cried, all
in a breath, and repeated the words. Wethermill waited with his hand
upon the wooden frame in which the cards were stacked. He glanced round
the table while the stakes were being laid upon the cloth, and suddenly
his face flashed from languor into interest. Almost opposite to him a
small, white-gloved hand holding a five-louis note was thrust forward
between the shoulders of two men seated at the table. Wethermill leaned
forward and shook his head with a smile. With a gesture he refused the
stake. But he was too late. The fingers of the hand had opened, the
note fluttered down on to the cloth, the money was staked.

At once he leaned back in his chair.

"Il y a une suite," he said quietly. He relinquished the bank rather
than play against that five-louis note. The stakes were taken up by
their owners.

The croupier began to count Wethermill's winnings, and Ricardo, curious
to know whose small, delicately gloved hand it was which had brought
the game to so abrupt a termination, leaned forward. He recognised the
young girl in the white satin dress and the big black hat whose nerves
had got the better of her a few minutes since in the garden. He saw her
now clearly, and thought her of an entrancing loveliness. She was
moderately tall, fair of skin, with a fresh colouring upon her cheeks
which she owed to nothing but her youth. Her hair was of a light brown
with a sheen upon it, her forehead broad, her eyes dark and wonderfully
clear. But there was something more than her beauty to attract him. He
had a strong belief that somewhere, some while ago, he had already seen
her. And this belief grew and haunted him. He was still vaguely
puzzling his brains to fix the place when the croupier finished his
reckoning.

"There are two thousand louis in the bank," he cried. "Who will take on
the bank for two thousand louis?"

No one, however, was willing. A fresh bank was put up for sale, and
Wethermill, still sitting in the dealer's chair, bought it. He spoke at
once to an attendant, and the man slipped round the table, and, forcing
his way through the crowd, carrie