Hohenstein was still present, since his train did not leave until after midnight. Whist and ombre not being to his taste, however, he proposed a game of faro. "Just a quiet little game," he said, "to make matters rather more lively."
Werner, who had just finished a rubber at whist, came up to Lothar, and said, "Will you not take my place at that table? I see you are not yet engaged, and I want to go home early to-night."
"No," said Lothar, who had taken more punch than was good for him, and whose irritable mood had gradually given place to one of noisy merriment. "No, I couldn't think of it. If you are tired of whist, come and play faro with us."
"You know I never play faro," Werner replied, and then added, in a low tone, "and neither ought you to play it. You never have any luck, my dear Eichhof, and----"
"Nevertheless, I shall do as I please," Lothar rejoined haughtily.
Werner bit his lips to suppress an angry retort. He saw that Lothar was hardly responsible for his words or manner, and he therefore only looked him steadily in the face, and said, "I have warned you, my dear Eichhof."
He then left the window-recess, whither he had withdrawn Lothar, and rejoined his whist-party, but without losing sight of his friend. Lothar, however, seemed to have a run of luck, and won repeatedly.
At last the game of whist was over, and Werner, who was weary, tried once more to induce Lothar to leave with him. But he soon saw that he must be given up to his fate, and accordingly left the Casino without him.
"I knew I should have no influence over him," he thought; "and this fresh proof of it that I have had to-night makes my departure from this place easier. Easier?" He smiled sadly. "Was there any choice left me? I owed it to myself, and---- It is by a fortunate dispensation of Providence that I am enabled to go so soon."
He walked slowly along the moonlit street; his footsteps echoed firmly and regularly through the silence of the night, and straight and clear before his mind lay the path that duty required him to tread.