shion is about the easiest way
of getting rid of money that the ingenuity of man has devised. The other
players were much better qualified to run such risks than Mr. Roscorla,
but none played half so wildly as he. His I.O.U.'s went freely about. At
one point in the evening the floating paper bearing the signature of Mr.
Roscorla represented a sum of about three hundred pounds, and yet his
losses did not weigh heavily on him. At length every one got tired, and
it was resolved to stop short at a certain hour. But from this point the
luck changed: nothing could stand against his cards; one by one his
I.O.U.'s were recalled; and when they all rose from the table he had won
about forty-eight pounds. He was not elated.

He went to his room and sat down in an easy-chair; and then it seemed to
him that he saw Eglosilyan once more, and the far coasts of Cornwall,
and the broad uplands lying under a blue English sky. That was his home,
and he had cut himself away from it, and from the little glimmer of
romance that had recently brightened it for him. Every bit of the place,
too, was associated somehow with Wenna Rosewarne. He could see the seat
fronting the Atlantic on which she used to sit and sew on the fine
summer forenoons. He could see the rough road leading over the downs on
which he met her one wintry morning, she wrapped up and driving her
father's dog-cart, while the red sun in the sky seemed to brighten the
pink color the cold wind had brought into her cheeks. He thought of her
walking sedately up to church; of her wild scramblings among the rocks
with Mabyn; of her enjoyment of a fierce wind when it came laden with
the spray of the great rollers breaking on the cliff outside. What was
the song she used to sing to herself as she went along the quiet
woodland ways?--

Your Polly has never been false, she declares,
Since last time we parted at Wapping Old Stairs.

He could not let her go. All the anger of wounded vanity had left his
heart: he thought now only of the chance he was throwing away. Where
else could he hope to find for himself so pleasant a companion and
friend, who would cheer up his dull daily life with her warm sympathies,
her quick humor, her winning womanly ways?

He thought of that letter he had sent away, and cursed his own folly. So
long as she was bound by her promise he knew he could marry her when he
pleased, but now he had voluntarily released her. In a couple of weeks
she would hold he