to be coming in."

Kimberlin fetched the box, again locked the door, and the game began.
It was not one of the simple old games, but had complications, in which
judgment, as well as chance, played a part. After a game or two without
stakes, the stranger said,--

"You now seem to understand it. Very well--I will show you that you do
not. We will now throw for a dollar a game, and in that way I shall win
the money that you received in change. Otherwise I should be robbing
you, and I imagine you cannot afford to lose. I mean no offence. I am a
plain-spoken man, but I believe in honesty before politeness. I merely
want a little diversion, and you are so kind-natured that I am sure you
will not object."

"On the contrary," replied Kimberlin, "I shall enjoy it."

"Very well; but let us have another drink before we start. I believe I
am growing colder."

They drank again, and this time the starving man took his liquor with
relish--at least, it was something in his stomach, and it warmed and
delighted him.

The stake was a dollar a side. Kimberlin won. The pale stranger smiled
grimly, and opened another game. Again Kimberlin won. Then the stranger
pushed back his hat and fixed that still gaze upon his opponent,
smiling yet. With this full view of the pale stranger's face, Kimberlin
was more appalled than ever. He had begun to acquire a certain
self-possession and ease, and his marvelling at the singular character
of the adventure had begun to weaken, when this new incident threw him
back into confusion. It was the extraordinary expression of the
stranger's face that alarmed him. Never upon the face of a living being
had he seen a pallor so death-like and chilling. The face was more than
pale; it was white. Kimberlin's observing faculty had been sharpened by
the absinthe, and, after having detected the stranger in an
absent-minded effort two or three times to stroke a beard which had no
existence, he reflected that some of the whiteness of the face might be
due to the recent removal of a full beard. Besides the pallor, there
were deep and sharp lines upon the face, which the electric light
brought out very distinctly. With the exception of the steady glance of
the eyes and an occasional hard smile, that seemed out of place upon
such a face, the expression was that of stone inartistically cut. The
eyes were black, but of heavy expression; the lower lip was purple; the
hands were fine, white, and thin, and dark veins bulged