had addressed him took his seat opposite, and
the two, making choice of a pair of dice-boxes, began to play.

They did not use the modern game of hazard, but simply cast the dice,
each taking it in turn to throw, and a nick counting as a drawn battle.
The two staked sums higher than were usual in the company about them,
and one by one, the other gamblers forsook their tables, and came and
stood round. As the game proceeded, the young stranger's face grew more
and more pale, his eyes more feverish. But he played in silence. Not so
his backers. A volley of oaths and exclamations almost as thick as the
wood smoke that in part shrouded the game, began to follow each cast of
the dice. The air, one moment still and broken only by the hollow rattle
of the dice in the box, rang the next instant with the fierce outburst
of a score of voices.

The place, known as Simon's, was a gaming-house of the second class:
frequented, as the shabby finery of some and the tarnished arms of
others seemed to prove, by the poorer courtiers and the dubious
adventurers who live upon the great. It was used in particular by the
Guise faction, at this time in power; for though Henry of Valois was
legal and nominal King of France, Henry of Guise, the head of the
League, and the darling of Paris, imposed his will alike upon the King
and the favourites. He enjoyed the substance of power; the King had no
choice but to submit to his policy. In secret Henry the Third resented
the position, and between his immediate servants and the arrogant
followers of the Guises there was bitter enmity.

As the game proceeded, a trifle showed that the young player was either
ignorant of politics, or belonged to a party rarely represented at
Simon's. For some time he and his opponent had enjoyed equal luck. Then
they doubled the stakes, and fortune immediately declared herself
against him; with wondrous quickness his bag grew lank and thin, the
pile at the other's elbow a swollen sliding heap. The perspiration began
to stand on the young man's face. His hand trembled as he shook out the
last coins left in the bag and shoved them forward amid a murmur half of
derision half of sympathy; for if he was a stranger from the
country--that was plain, and they had recognized it at his first
appearance among them three days before--at least he played bravely. His
opponent, whose sallow face betrayed neither joy nor triumph, counted
out an equal sum, and pushed it forward without