emembers with singular distinctness that it was a word, only
one word, just a year ago to Grace Plumer--a word intended only to
deceive that foolish Fanny--which had cost him--at least, he thinks
so--Hope Wayne.

He bows his last guests out at the door with more sweetness in his face
than in his soul. Returning to the room he looks round upon the ruins of
the feast, and drinks copiously of the wine that still remains. Not at
all inclined to sleep, he goes into his bedroom and finds a cigar.
Returning, he makes a few turns in the room while he smokes, and stops
constantly to drink another glass. He half mutters to himself, as he
addresses the chair in which Grace Plumer has been sitting,

"Are you or I going to pay for this feast, Madame? Somebody has got to do
it. Young woman, Moultrie was right, and you are wrong. She _did_ become
Princess of Este. I'll pay now, and you'll pay by-and-by. Yes, my dear
Grace, you'll pay by-and-by."

He says these last words very slowly, with his teeth set, the head
a little crouched between the shoulders, and a stealthy, sullen, ugly
glare in the eyes.

"I've got to pay now, and you shall pay by-and-by. Yes, Miss Grace
Plumer; you shall pay for to-night and for the evening in my mother's
conservatory."

He strides about the room a little longer. It is one o'clock, and he goes
down stairs and out of the house. Still smoking, he passes along Broadway
until he reaches Thiel's. He hurries up, and finds only a few desperate
gamblers. Abel himself looks a little wild and flushed. He sits down
defiantly and plays recklessly. The hours are clanged from the belfry
of the City Hall. The lights burn brightly in Thiel's rooms. Nobody is
sleeping there. One by one the players drop away--except those who remark
Abel's game, for that is so careless and furious that it is threatening,
threatening, whether he loses or wins.

He loses constantly, but still plays on. The lights are steady. His eyes
are bright. The bank is quite ready to stay open for such a run of luck
in its favor.

The bell of the City Hall clangs three in the morning as a young man
emerges from Thiel's, and hurries, then saunters, up Broadway. His
motions are fitful, his dress is deranged, and his hair matted. His
face, in the full moonlight, is dogged and dangerous. It is the Prince
of the feast, who had told Grace Plumer that he was perfectly happy.

CHAPTER LI.

A WARNING.

A few evenings afterward, when Abel cal