, then motioned the maid to take
the tray and her departure, leaving her the cup.

A few minutes later Mortimer came in, stood a moment blinking around
the room, then dropped into a seat, sullen, inert, the folds of his chin
crowded out on his collar, his heavy abdomen cradled on his short, thick
legs. He had been freshly shaved; linen and clothing were spotless, yet
the man looked unclean.

Save for the network of purple veins in his face, there was no colour
there, none in his lips; even his flabby hands were the hue of clay.

"Are you ill?" asked his wife coolly.

"No, not very. I've got the jumps. What's that? Tea? Ugh! it's
chocolate. Push it out of sight, will you? I can smell it."

Leila set the delicate cup on a table behind her.

"What time did you return this morning?" she asked, stifling a yawn.

"I don't know; about five or six. How the devil should I know what time
I came in?"

Sitting there before the mirror of her dresser she stole a second glance
at his marred features in the glass. The loose mouth, the smeared eyes,
the palsy-like tremors that twitched the hands where they tightened on
the arms of his chair, became repulsive to the verge of fascination. She
tried to look away, but could not.

"You had better see Dr. Grisby," she managed to say.

"I'd better see you; that's what I'd better do," he retorted thickly.
"You'll do all the doctoring I want. And I want it, all right."

"Very well. What is it?"

He passed his swollen hand across his forehead.

"What is it?" he repeated. "It's the limit, this time, if you want to
know. I'm all in."

"Roulette?" raising her eyebrows without interest

"Yes, roulette, too. Everything! They got me upstairs at Burbank's.
The game's crooked! Every box, every case, every wheel, every pack is
crooked! crooked! crooked, by God!" he burst out in a fever, struggling
to sit upright, his hands always tightening on the arms of the chair.
"It's nothing but a creeping joint, run by a bunch of hand-shakers!
I--I'll--"

Stuttering, choking, stammering imprecations, his hoarse clamour
died away after a while. She sat there, head bent, silent, impassive,
acquiescent under the physical and mental strain to which she had never
become thoroughly hardened. How many such scenes had she witnessed! She
could not count them. They differed very little in detail, and not at
all in their ultimate object, which was to get what money she had. This
was his method of reimbursin