y--because she expected through
him to realize her ambitions. Under this motive lay another--an almost
savage love, not unlike the love for an Apache of the female of his
kind. Only, Dauntrey was not an Apache at heart, and Eve Ruthven was.
Eve, of course, was not her real name. She had been Emma Cotton until
she went on the stage twenty years ago, at sixteen; but she was the type
of woman who admires and takes the name of Eve. And Mrs. Ruthven she had
been as wife and widow after the theatrical career had been abandoned in
disaster. Something in her nature would have yearned toward Dauntrey if
he had had nothing to recommend him to her ambition; but she would have
resisted her own inclination for a penniless man without a title.

What money there was between them had been saved in one way or other by
her; but, as Dodo Wardropp surmised, there was far less than Mrs.
Ruthven had persuaded Lord Dauntrey to believe. At first she had worked
upon the overmastering passion of his nature, where most other loves and
desires were burnt out or broken down: the passion for gambling. He had
told her about the roulette system which he had invented, a wonderful
system, in practising which with a roulette watch or a toy wheel, he had
managed to get through dreadful years of banishment, without dying of
boredom. She had encouraged him to hope that with her money they would
have enough capital to play the system successfully at Monte Carlo, and
win fortune in a way which for long had been the dream of his life, as
hers had been to become a personage in "real society."

With five thousand pounds, Lord Dauntrey was confident that he could win
through the worst possible slide the system was likely to experience,
playing with louis stakes. Mrs. Ruthven mentioned that she had eight
thousand pounds. After he had asked her to marry him, and she had said
yes, and told everybody she knew, about the engagement--including
newspaper men in Johannesburg--Dauntrey discovered that the figure she
had mentioned was in hundreds, not thousands. But she sobbed out a
passionate confession, saying she had lied because she loved him: and
they could still go to Monte Carlo, with a plan she had, and try the
system with five-franc pieces instead of louis.

It was a long time since any one had loved Dauntrey. He was lonely, and
hated to hurt a woman. Besides, five-franc pieces were better than
nothing, and he was sick to death of South Africa.

They had got th