"'That the doctor has been attending me lately,' she answered. 'Do not let it trouble you, dear. You also are not well. How changed you are! how changed! There is something on your mind, my dear."
"She did not say this in reproach, but in loving entreaty and pity; and though she did not directly ask me to confide in her, I understood her appeal. But I did not dare to confess my folly and my shame. I had kept my secret well, and she did not suspect it. No, I would not expose my degradation to her and my child. Perhaps, when I had won back the fortune I had lost, when I could say, 'I have not completely ruined your future,' then I might find courage to tell her all. But now, when I was nearly beggared and fortune was in my grasp, I must be silent; my secret must be kept from her.
"'It is nothing, Lucy,' I said; 'nothing. What does the doctor say?'
"She withdrew from my embrace, and said, coldly I thought:
"'I am not very well; that is all, Robert.'
"Nothing more passed between us that night. I believed--because I wished to believe--that there was nothing serious the matter with her; and if I was right in my conjecture that she was cold to me, it sprang probably because I would not confess what was weighing on my mind.
"How shall I describe the events of the next few weeks? Night after night I went from my home and kept out, often till daylight, endeavoring to wrest my losses from my fellow-gamesters. My wife did not ask me now to remain with her; she did not complain, and no further reference was made to the doctor. This was a comfort to me. If there had been anything to be really alarmed at I should not have been kept in ignorance of it. So I went blindly on, greedy now for money, chafing at my losses, suspecting all around me, and yet continuing to play till I had completely beggared myself. My companions did not know. It was not likely I was going to confess to them that if I lost I had not the means of paying. They continued to play with me, and I got in their debt, inventing excuses for being short of money. It was only temporary, I said; I should be in funds very soon. Do you see, Rathbeal, how low I had fallen?
"A sharper experience was to be mine. I lost a large sum and my paper was out for two thousand pounds. It was a debt of honor and must be paid. The misery of it was that I had perfected a system at roulette, which, with money at my command, could not possibly fail; and I had no means at my disposal to go to Monte Carlo, where unlimited wealth was awaiting me. It would be necessary to break up my home, but even that would not supply me with sufficient funds to pay my debts of honor and go to Monte Carlo. There was but one course open to me. My wife had a small private fortune of her own; I would ask her to advance me a portion of it as a loan which I would soon repay. I broached the subject to her.
"'It is only temporary,' I said, annoyed with myself that they should be the same words I had used to the men who held my paper.
"'You know how much I have, Robert,' she said, averting her eyes from me. 'It is Clair's more than mine. She must not be left penniless. I do not think you ought to ask me for so large a sum.'