die! I say you are a--a--"

"A man sharper than my neighbour."

"Yes, a man sharper than my neighbour; a regular sharper!"

"Poor chips-in-porridge, you are very unmannerly."

"I don't know about that! And I say you be unmannerly! You've got
money that isn't your own. Half the guineas are poor Mr. Clym's."

"How's that?"

"Because I had to gie fifty of 'em to him. Mrs. Yeobright said so."

"Oh?... Well, 'twould have been more graceful of her to have given
them to his wife Eustacia. But they are in my hands now."

Christian pulled on his boots, and with heavy breathings, which could
be heard to some distance, dragged his limbs together, arose, and
tottered away out of sight. Wildeve set about shutting the lantern to
return to the house, for he deemed it too late to go to Mistover to
meet his wife, who was to be driven home in the captain's four-wheel.
While he was closing the little horn door a figure rose from behind a
neighbouring bush and came forward into the lantern light. It was the
reddleman approaching.

VIII

A New Force Disturbs the Current

Wildeve stared. Venn looked coolly towards Wildeve, and, without a
word being spoken, he deliberately sat himself down where Christian
had been seated, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out a
sovereign, and laid it on the stone.

"You have been watching us from behind that bush?" said Wildeve.

The reddleman nodded. "Down with your stake," he said. "Or haven't
you pluck enough to go on?"

Now, gambling is a species of amusement which is much more easily
begun with full pockets than left off with the same; and though
Wildeve in a cooler temper might have prudently declined this
invitation, the excitement of his recent success carried him
completely away. He placed one of the guineas on a slab beside the
reddleman's sovereign. "Mine is a guinea," he said.

"A guinea that's not your own," said Venn sarcastically.

"It is my own," answered Wildeve haughtily. "It is my wife's, and
what is hers is mine."

"Very well; let's make a beginning." He shook the box, and threw
eight, ten, and nine; the three casts amounted to twenty-seven.

This encouraged Wildeve. He took the box; and his three casts
amounted to forty-five.

Down went another of the reddleman's sovereigns against his first one
which Wildeve laid. This time Wildeve threw fifty-one points, but no
pair. The reddleman looked grim, threw a raffle of aces, and pocketed
the stakes.

"Her