my
love for the woman, who loved him, it was my one great desire to help
him. My luck was such that I believed I could do it--my luck and my
conceit. You see, next to the woman I loved he was everything in the
world to me. Do you get that?"

Buck nodded.

"Well, in spite of all I could and did do, after a nice run of luck
which made me think his affairs had turned for the better, a spell of
the most terrible ill-luck set in. There was no checking it. He rode
headlong for a smash. I financed him time and again, nearly ruining
myself in my effort to save him. He took to drink badly. He grew
desperate in his gambling. In short, I saw he had given up all hope.
Again I did the best I could. I was always with him. My object was to
endeavor to keep him in check. In his drinking bouts I was with him,
and when he insisted on poker and other gambling I was there to take a
hand. If I hadn't done these things--well, others would have, but with
a different object. By a hundred devices I managed to minimize the bad
results of his wild, headstrong career.

"Then the end came. Had I been less young, had I been less hopeful for
him, less wrapped up in him, I must have foreseen it. We were playing
cards in his apartments. His housekeeper and his baby girl were in a
distant room. They were in bed. You see, it was late at night. It was
the last hand. His luck had been diabolical, but the stakes were
comparatively low. I shall never forget the scene. His nerves were
completely shattered. He picked up his hand, glanced at it--we were
playing poker--jack pots--and flung it down. 'I'm done,' he cried,
and, kicking back his chair, rose from the table. He moved a pace away
as though to go to the side-table where the whisky and soda stood. I
thought he meant having a drink. His back was turned to me. The next
moment I heard shots. He seemed to stumble, swung round with a sort of
jerk, and fell face downward across the table.

"I jumped to his assistance. But--he was dead. He had shot himself
through the heart and in the stomach. My horror? Well, it doesn't
matter now. I was utterly and completely unnerved. If I hadn't been
perhaps I should have acted differently. I should have called
his--housekeeper. I should have summoned the police--a doctor. But I
did none of these. My horror and grief were such that I--fled; fled
like the coward I was. Nor did I simply flee from the house. I left
everything, and fled from the city that night. It was no