own nature. I knew of but one--do not look at
me, Miss Strange. It was dishonouring to us both, and I'm horrified now
when I think of it. But to me at that time it was natural enough as a
last resort. There was but one debt which my wife ever paid, but one
promise she ever kept. It was that made at the gaming-table. I offered,
as soon as my father, realizing the hopelessness of the situation, had
gone tottering from the room, to gamble with her for the child.

"And she accepted."

The shame and humiliation expressed in this final whisper; the sudden
darkness--for a storm was coming up--shook Violet to the soul. With
strained gaze fixed on the man before her, now little more than a shadow
in the prevailing gloom, she waited for him to resume, and waited
in vain. The minutes passed, the darkness became intolerable, and
instinctively her hand crept towards the electric button beneath which
she was sitting. But she failed to press it. A tale so dark called for
an atmosphere of its own kind. She would cast no light upon it. Yet she
shivered as the silence continued, and started in uncontrollable dismay
when at length her strange visitor rose, and still, without speaking,
walked away from her to the other end of the room. Only so could he go
on with the shameful tale; and presently she heard his voice once more
in these words:

"Our house is large and its rooms many; but for such work as we two
contemplated there was but one spot where we could command absolute
seclusion. You may have heard of it, a famous natural grotto hidden in
our own portion of the coast and so fitted up as to form a retreat for
our miserable selves when escape from my father's eye seemed desirable.
It was not easy of access, and no one, so far as we knew, had ever
followed us there.

"But to ensure ourselves against any possible interruption, we waited
till the whole house was abed before we left it for the grotto. We went
by boat and oh! the dip of those oars! I hear them yet. And the witchery
of her face in the moonlight; and the mockery of her low fitful laugh!
As I caught the sinister note in its silvery rise and fall, I knew what
was before me if I failed to retain my composure. And I strove to
hold it and to meet her calmness with stoicism and the taunt of her
expression with a mask of immobility. But the effort was hopeless, and
when the time came for dealing out the cards, my eyes were burning in
their sockets and my hands shivering like le