dded, taking a long pull with his lungs, as if he had
got quit of an attack of asthma; "but though I may satisfy the widow,
how am I to appease Heaven? Come," he added, again seizing me with a
force in which there was a tremble, "I want to ease my mind. You are my
oldest friend, and a load divided is more easily carried."

And leading the way into the parlour, where the fire had got into a fine
red heat, and was sending a glare through the ruby and golden contents
of several strangely-shaped bottles on the table, he threw himself on a
chair on the one side, I taking one on the other. A few minutes of
silence intervened.

"If it be as painful for you," he continued, "to hear a confession as it
is for me to make it, you may help yourself to bear the infliction by
pouring into your stomach some of that Burgundy. I will take none. I
have fire enough in my brain already;" and he pushed the bottle to me.

"You were a bit of a blackleg yourself," he continued, as he threw
himself back in the arm-chair, and compressed his chest with his folded
arms till the blood seemed to mount to his face. "You were present at
that game where I took the five thousand by a trick from Gourlay. You
know, as a gambler yourself, that all the tribe are by constitution
cheats. It is folly to speak of an honest gambler. The passion is a ten
thousand times distilled selfishness, with no qualm of obligation to God
or religion to keep it in check--only a little fear of that bugbear,
society. Our club at the 'Red Lion' all knew this in our souls; but
every one of us knew also that the moment he would be discovered
cheating, he would be scorched with our hatred and contempt. He must
leave our pure society on the instant--not of course that he was any
worse than the rest of us, but only that he was unfortunate in being
discovered. That night Gourlay and I were demons. We had baffled each
other, and drank till our brains seethed, though our countenances and
speech betrayed nothing but the extreme of coolness. He had won a
thousand of me, and hounded me from post to pillar, offering to be
cleared out by my _skill_, as he called it sneeringly. The fellow, in
short, hated me, because the year before, at Baden-Baden, I had taken
two thousand out of him, and would not give him his revenge."

"He must have thought you honest," said I; "otherwise he would not have
thus badgered you to play."

"No; he had not the generosity to think me honest. I repeat, no gamb