lpful. It was a pity there was no
vacant room in his hotel.

He made his way to the further table, and gradually reached a point of
vantage where he could see those of the players who were seated round the
green cloth.

As is generally the case when really high play is going on, the people
who were playing, as also those watching them, were curiously quiet.

And then, with a shock of surprise which sent the blood to his cheeks,
Chester suddenly saw that Sylvia Bailey was sitting nearly opposite to
where he himself was standing.

There are certain scenes, certain human groupings of individuals, which
remain fixed for ever against the screen of memory. Bill Chester will
never forget the sight which was presented to him in the Lacville Casino
by the particular group on which his tired eyes became focussed with
growing amazement and attention.

Sylvia was sitting at the baccarat table next to the man who was acting
as Banker. She was evidently absorbed in the fortunes of the game, and
she followed the slow falling of the fateful cards with rather feverish
intentness.

Her small gloved hands rested on the table, one of them loosely holding a
tiny ivory rake; and on a bank-note spread open on the green cloth before
her were two neat piles of gold, the one composed of twenty-franc, the
other of ten-franc pieces.

Chester, with a strange feeling of fear and anger clutching at his heart,
told himself that he had never seen Sylvia look as she looked to-night.
She was more than pretty--she was lovely, and above all, alive--vividly
alive. There was a bright colour on her cheek, and a soft light shining
in her eyes.

The row of pearls which had occasioned the only serious difference which
had ever arisen between them, rose and fell softly on the bosom of her
black lace dress.

Chester also gradually became aware that his beautiful friend and client
formed a centre of attraction to those standing round the gambling-table.
Both the men and the women stared at her, some enviously, but more with
kindly admiration, for beauty is sure of its tribute in any French
audience, and Sylvia Bailey to-night looked radiantly lovely--lovely and
yet surely unhappy and ill-at-ease.

Well might she look both in such a place and among such a crew! So the
English lawyer angrily told himself.

Now and again she turned and spoke in an eager, intimate fashion to a man
sitting next her on her left. This man, oddly enough, was not playing.

S