sung "as the ten commandments." He could not do that, and put the
book back again, and declared to himself that farther search would be
useless. He looked round the room and tried to price the books, and told
himself that three or four days at the club might see an end of it all.
Then he wandered on into the state drawing-room,--an apartment which he
had not entered for years,--and found that all the furniture was
carefully covered. Of what use could it all be to him,--unless that it,
too, might be sent to the melting-pot and brought into some short-lived
use at the club?

But as he was about to leave the room he stood for a moment on the rug
before the fireplace and looked into the huge mirror which stood there.
If the walls might be his, as well as the garnishing of them, and if
Florence Mountjoy could come and reign there, then he fancied that they
all might be put to a better purpose than that of which he had thought.
In earlier days, two or three years ago, at a time which now seemed to
him to be very distant, he had regarded Florence as his own, and as such
had demanded her hand. In the pride of his birth, and position, and
fashion, he had had no thought of her feelings, and had been imperious.
He told himself that it had been so with much self-condemnation. At any
rate, he had learned, during those months of solitary wandering, the
power of condemning himself. And now he told him that if she would yet
come he might still learn to sing that song of the old-fashioned poet
"as to the ten commandments." At any rate, he would endeavor to sing it,
as she bade him.

He went on through all the bedrooms, remembering, but hardly more than
remembering, them as he entered them. "Oh, Florence,--my Florence!" he
said, as he passed on. He had done it all for himself,--brought down
upon his own head this infinite ruin,--and for what? He had scarcely ever
won, and Tretton was gone from him forever. But still there might yet be
a chance if he could abstain from gambling.

And then, when it was dusk within the house, he went out, and passed
through the stables and roamed about the gardens till the evening had
altogether set in, and black night had come upon him. Two years ago he
had known that he was the heir to it all, though even then that habit
was so strong upon him he had felt that his tenure of it would be but
slight. But he had then always to tell himself that when his marriage
had taken place a great change would be effe