Mr. Snivel points George to a table, at which he is soon seated. "Blank-blank-blank!" he reiterates, as the numbers turn up, and one by one the moody bank-keeper sweeps the money into his fast-increasing heap. "Cursed fate!—it is against me," mutters the forlorn man. "Another gone, and yet another! How this deluding, this fascinating money tortures me." With hectic face and agitated nerve, he puts down his last dollar. "Luck's mysterious!" exclaims Mr. Snivel, looking on unmoved, as the man of the moody face declares a blank, and again sweeps the money into his heap. "Gone!" says George, "all's gone now." He rises from his seat, in despair.
"Don't get frantic, George-be a philosopher-try again-here's a ten. Luck 'll turn," says Mr. Snivel, patting the deluded man familiarly on the shoulder, as he resumes his seat. "Will poverty never cease torturing me? I have tried to be a man, an honest man, a respectable man. And yet, here I am, again cast upon a gambler's sea, struggling with its fearful tempests. How cold, how stone-like the faces around me!" he muses, watching with death-like gaze each number as it turns up. Again he has staked his last dollar; again fortune frowns upon him. Like a furnace of livid flame, the excitement seems burning up his brain. "I am a fool again," he says, throwing the blank number contemptuously upon the table. "Take it-take it, speechless, imperturbable man! Rake it into your pile, for my eyes are dim, and my fortune I must seek elsewhere."
A noise at the door, as of some one in distress, is heard, and there rushes frantically into the den a pale, dejected-looking woman, bearing in her arms a sick and emaciated babe. "Oh, William! William!—has it come to this?" she shrieks, casting a wild glance round the den, until, with a dark, sad expression, her eye falls upon the object of her search. It is her husband, once a happy mechanic. Enticed by degrees into this den of ruin, becoming fascinated with its games of chance, he is now an habitue. To-night he left his suffering family, lost his all here, and now, having drank to relieve his feelings, lies insensible on the floor. "Come home!—come home! for God's sake come home to your suffering family," cries the woman, vaulting to him and taking him by the hand, her hair floating dishevelled down her shoulders. "I sent Tommy into the street to beg-I am ashamed-and he is picked up by the watch for a thief, a vagrant!" The prostrate man remains insensible to her appeal. Two policemen, who have been quietly neglecting their duties while taking a few chances, sit unmoved. Mr. Snivel thinks the woman better be removed. "Our half-starved mechanics," he says, "are a depraved set; and these wives they bring with them from the North are a sort of cross between a lean stage-driver and a wildcat. She seems a poor, destitute creature-just what they all come to, out here." Mr. Snivel shrugs his shoulders, bids George good night, and takes his departure. "Take care of yourself, George," he says admonitiously, as the destitute man watches him take his leave. The woman, frantic at the coldness and apathy manifested for her distress, lays her babe hurriedly upon the floor, and with passion and despair darting from her very eyes, makes a lunge across the keno table at the man who sits stoically at the bank. In an instant everything is turned into uproar and confusion. Glasses, chairs, and tables, are hurled about the floor; shriek follows shriek—"help! pity me! murder!" rises above the confusion, the watch without sound the alarm, and the watch within suddenly become conscious of their duty. In the midst of all the confusion, a voice cries out: "My pocket book-my pocket book!—I have been robbed." A light flashes from a guardsman's lantern, and George Mullholland is discovered with the forlorn woman in his arms-she clings tenaciously to her babe-rushing into the street.
CHAPTER XXXII.
WHICH A STATE OF SOCIETY IS SLIGHTLY REVEALED.
A WEEK has rolled into the past since the event at the Keno den.
Madame Montford, pale, thoughtful, and abstracted, sits musing in her parlor. "Between this hope and fear-this remorse of conscience, this struggle to overcome the suspicions of society, I have no peace. I am weary of this slandering-this unforgiving world. And yet it is my own conscience that refuses to forgive me. Go where I will I see the cold finger of scorn pointed at me: I read in every countenance, 'Madame Montford, you have wronged some one-your guilty conscience betrays you!' I have sought to atone for my error-to render justice to one my heart tells me I have wronged, yet I cannot shake off the dread burden; and there seems rest for me only in the grave. Ah! there it is. The one error of my life, and the means used to conceal it, may have brought misery upon more heads than one." She lays her hand upon her heart, and shakes her head sorrowfully. "Yes! something like a death-knell rings in my ears-'more than one have you sent, unhappy, to the grave.' Rejected by the one I fancy my own; my very touch scorned; my motives misconstrued-all, perhaps, by-a doubt yet hangs between us-an abandoned stranger. Duty to my conscience has driven me to acts that have betrayed me to society. I cannot shake my guilt from me even for a day; and now society coldly cancels all my claims to its attentions. If I could believe her dead; if I but knew this girl was not the object of all my heart's unrest, then the wearying doubt would be buried, and my heart might find peace in some remote corner of the earth. Well, well-perhaps I am wasting all this torture on an unworthy object. I should have thought of this sooner, for now foul slander is upon every tongue, and my misery is made thrice painful by my old flatterers. I will make one more effort, then if I fail of getting a certain clue to her, I will remove to some foreign country, shake off these haunting dreams, and be no longer a victim to my own thoughts." Somewhat relieved, Madame is roused from her reverie by a gentle tap at the door. "I have waited your coming, and am glad to see you;" she says, extending her hand, as a servant, in response to her command, ushers into her presence no less a person than Tom Swiggs. "I have sent for you," she resumes, motioning him gracefully to a chair, in which she begs he will be seated, "because I feel I can confide in you—"
"Anything in my power is at your service, Madame," modestly interposes Tom, regaining confidence.
"I entrusted something of much importance to me, to Mr. Snivel—"
"We call him the Hon. Mr. Snivel now, since he has got to be a great politician," interrupts Tom.