ed-looking man in evening-dress.

A few were still playing, but the majority were watching the fortunes
of the veiled lady. She was, besides, the only woman in the room.

Paul stood for a few moments and watched her play. Nor was it
difficult, even to his unpracticed eye, to see that she had begun to
wage a losing fight against the bank.

Draped in a long opera cloak from which her bare arms were thrust, she
sat forward eagerly in her chair, her lips trembling, her eyes bright
as stars.

Her face and figure were in extraordinary contrast to her
surroundings.

Every man in the room, Paul thought, appeared to feel that he was in
the presence of one who not only had the right, but the power, to
command respect, and the coarse faces by which she was surrounded
surveyed her with a certain deference.

As the game went on and the _croupier_ monotonously raked in the
winnings of the bank, Paul suddenly divined the motive which had
induced the lady to come there. Undoubtedly it was the hope that she
might win enough to satisfy the cruel demands of those who persecuted
her.

Quite evidently disturbed by his entrance, for the next few minutes
she had apparently lost all track of the successful theory which she
had been following. And Paul knew well enough that if a good player
once becomes unnerved, his luck, for some strange reason, will change
with his mood, and no efforts, however bold or desperate, will avail
him anything.

It amazed Verdayne beyond measure that the lady could play such a game
with so consummate a skill and so much evidence of experience. He
judged that at some time or other she had had a little fling at Monte
Carlo, and that profiting by such knowledge as she had acquired
before, she had now been playing an inspired game for some
incalculable stake.

If she won against the bank it would release her from her torment; no
other theory was possible.

It made his heart grow cold with rage as he appreciated that he had
been made the innocent instrument of such a hard experience for her.

So convinced did he become of this fact that he shouldered his way
through the crowd, and leaning over her chair, whispered into her ear:

"Don't be alarmed. I see you have been greatly upset. Please allow me
to assist you."

The man at her right hand scowled angrily, but Paul turned to him with
an urbane smile. "As you do not seem to be playing," he said, "perhaps
you will allow me to have your chair?"

Nor had