y seemed to exist in the suspense of the very silence, in the
charged atmosphere of the room. He began to shuffle the cards. His hands
were white, shapely, perfect, like a woman's, and yet not beautiful.
The spirit, the power, the ruthless nature in them had no relation to
beauty. How marvelously swift they moved--too swift for the gaze to
follow. And the incomparable dexterity with which he manipulated the
cards gave forth the suggestion as to what he could do with them. In
those gleaming hands, in the flying cards, in the whole intenseness of
the gambler there showed the power and the intent to win. The crooked
Durade had met his match, a match who toyed with him. If there were an
element of chance in this short game it was that of the uncertainty of
life, not of Durade's chance to win. He had no chance. No eye, no
hand could have justly detected Hough in the slightest deviation from
honesty. Yet all about the man in that tense moment proved what a
gambler really was.

Durade called in a whisper for two cards, and he received them with
trembling fingers. Terrible hope and exultation transformed his face.

"I'll take three," said Hough, calmly. With deliberate care and
slowness, in strange contrast to his former motions, he took, one by
one, three cards from the deck. Then he looked at them, and just as
calmly dropped all his cards, face up, on the table, disclosing what he
knew to be an unbeatable hand.

Durade stared. A thick cry escaped him.

Swiftly Hough rose. "Durade, I have won." Then he turned to his friends.
"Gentlemen, please pocket this gold."

With that he stepped to Allie's door. He saw her peering out. "Come,
Miss Lee," he said.

Allie stepped out, trembling and unsteady on her feet.

The Spaniard now seemed compelled to look up from the gold Hough's
comrades were pocketing. When he saw Allie another slow and remarkable
transformation came over him. At first he started slightly at Hough's
hand on Allie's arm. The radiance of his strange passion for gold, that
had put a leaping glory into his haggard face, faded into a dark and
mounting surprise. A blaze burned away the shadows. His eyes betrayed
an unsupportable sense of loss and the spirit that repudiated it. For a
single instant he was magnificent--and perhaps in that instant race
and blood spoke; then, with bewildering suddenness, surely with the
suddenness of a memory, he became a black, dripping-faced victim of
unutterable and unquenchable ha