mbler raked in the
bets--a slender hand flashed by me--turned the next card. The queen that
was, after all.

The gambler darkened, gathering the pasteboards.

"We can't both win, gentlemen," he said, tone passionless. "But I am
willing to give you one more chance, from a new deck."

What the response was I did not know, nor care. My ears drummed
confusedly, and seeing nothing I pushed through into the open, painfully
conscious that I was flat penniless and that instead of having played the
knave I had played the fool, for the queen of hearts.

The loss of some twenty dollars might have been a trivial matter to me
once--I had at times cast that sum away as vainly as Washington had cast a
dollar across the Potomac; but here I had lost my all, whether large or
small; and not only had I been bilked out of it--I had bilked myself out
of it by sinking, in pretended smartness, below the level of a more artful
dodger.

I heard My Lady speaking beside me.

"I'm so sorry." She laid hand upon my sleeve. "You should have been
content with small sums, or followed my lead. Next time----"

"There'll be no next time," I blurted. "I am cleaned out."

"You don't mean----?"

"I was first robbed at the hotel. Now here."

"No, no!" she opposed. Jim sidled to us. "That was a bungle, Jim."

He ruefully scratched his head.

"A wrong steer for once, I reckon. I warn't slick enough. Too much money
on the table. But it looked like the card; I never took my eyes off'n it.
We'll try ag'in, and switch to another layout. By thunder, I want revenge
on this joint and I mean to get it. So do you, don't you, pardner?" he
appealed to me.

As with mute, sickly denial I turned away it seemed to me that I sensed a
shifting of forms at the monte table--caught the words "You watch here a
moment"; and close following, a slim white hand fell heavily upon My
Lady's shoulder. It whirled her about, to face the gambler. His smooth
olive countenance was dark with a venom of rage incarnate that poisoned
the air; his syllables crackled.

"You devil! I heard you, at the table. You meddle with my come-ons, will
you?" And he slapped her with open palm, so that the impact smacked. "Now
get out o' here or I'll kill you."

She flamed red, all in a single rush of blood.

"Oh!" she breathed. Her hand darted for the pocket in her skirt, but I
sprang between the two. Forgetful of my revolver, remembering only what I
had witnessed--a woman struck by a man--wit