"'If I play as I am playing now," I replied, 'some two or three weeks. If I play more boldly, a week may accomplish it.'
"'Why not play boldly?' he suggested.
"I had half intended to do so, and his words encouraged me. We went to the tables together, and I began to plunge. Before I left the rooms I had lost all I had won, and some part of the money I had brought with me. I pretended to make light of it.
"'These adverse combinations occasionally occur," I said, 'but they right themselves infallibly if you hold on. It is only a temporary repulse.'
"But though I spoke confidently my heart was fainting within me. Theory is one thing, practice another. We can be very bold on paper, but when we are fighting with the enemy we feel his blows.
"The next day my friend accompanied me again to the tables, With all my boasting I had not the daring to risk my capital in half-a-dozen bold coups; I put on much smaller sums, and I had the mortification of learning that my want of courage prevented me from winning what I ought to have done.
"'You see,' I said to my friend. 'Faint heart never succeeded yet. But it is only a little time lost, and it proves the certainty of my calculations.'
"He had to leave me that evening, and he made me promise that I would write to him daily of my progress. As he was going to see my wife, I gave him a letter to her, in which I begged her to write to me at Monte Carlo. He said he would deliver the letter, and it was not until some time afterward that I recalled his manner as being somewhat strained.
"The story of the next few days is soon told. Hope, despair; hope again, followed by despair. I came down to my last hundred pounds. Over and over again, in the solitude of my room, I proved to myself how weak I had been in not doing this or that at the right moment; over and over again I proved to my own misery that it was due to my own lack of courage that I had not won back my fortune. I conned the numbers I had written down as they were called out. 'Fool, fool, fool!' I cried, striking my forehead. 'Wretched, contemptible coward!' I rose in the morning haggard and weary; I had not slept a moment all the night. There was still a chance left: I had a hundred pounds; I would play on a lower martingale, and as I won I would increase it. I did so. That day I remained at the tables ten hours without rising from the seat I had secured. I won, I lost, I won again, I lost again. A few minutes before the rooms closed I had followed my system to a point whereat, after a series of losses, it needed but a large amount to be staked to get all back again. I had this amount before me. On previous occasions I had drawn back at such a critical juncture, and had suffered for it by hearing the number called which, in its various winning chances, would have recouped, with large profit, all that had been lost in the series. I would not be guilty of this cowardice again. With a trembling hand I put every franc I had on the various chances which were certain this time to win. The number was called. Great God! I was beggared! Without a word I rose and went to my hotel.
"Can you imagine the torments of hell, Rathbeal? I suffered them then. But there was worse in store for me.