at," said Jack, with lazy deliberation, taking
off his watch, and beginning to wind it up, "ef you're that much stuck
after Jack Folinsbee, YOU kin keep him off of me much easier than I kin.
You're a rich woman. Give him enough money to break my bank, or break
himself for good and all; but don't keep him forlin' round me in hopes
to make a raise. It don't pay, Mistress Moffat--it don't pay!"

A finer nature than Peg's would have misunderstood or resented the
gambler's slang, and the miserable truths that underlaid it. But she
comprehended him instantly, and sat hopelessly silent.

"Ef you'll take my advice," continued Jack, placing his watch and chain
under his pillow, and quietly unloosing his cravat, "you'll quit this
yer forlin', marry that chap, and hand over to him the money and the
money-makin' that's killin' you. He'll get rid of it soon enough. I
don't say this because I expect to git it; for, when he's got that
much of a raise, he'll make a break for 'Frisco, and lose it to some
first-class sport THERE. I don't say, neither, that you mayn't be in
luck enough to reform him. I don't say, neither--and it's a derned sight
more likely!--that you mayn't be luckier yet, and he'll up and die afore
he gits rid of your money. But I do say you'll make him happy NOW; and,
ez I reckon you're about ez badly stuck after that chap ez I ever saw
any woman, you won't be hurtin' your own feelin's either."

The blood left Peg's face as she looked up. "But that's WHY I can't give
him the money--and he won't marry me without it."

Mr. Hamlin's hand dropped from the last button of his waistcoat.
"Can't--give--him--the--money?" he repeated slowly.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because--because I LOVE him."

Mr. Hamlin rebuttoned his waistcoat, and sat down patiently on the bed.
Peg arose, and awkwardly drew the portmanteau a little nearer to him.

"When Jim Byways left me this yer property," she began, looking
cautiously around, "he left it to me on CONDITIONS; not conditions ez
waz in his WRITTEN will, but conditions ez waz SPOKEN. A promise I made
him in this very room, Mr. Hamlin,--this very room, and on that very bed
you're sittin' on, in which he died."

Like most gamblers, Mr. Hamlin was superstitious. He rose hastily from
the bed, and took a chair beside the window. The wind shook it as if the
discontented spirit of Mr. Byways were without, re-enforcing his last
injunction.

"I don't know if you remember him," said Peg feverish