The boy had an only sister, a very delicate girl, who had been ordered to spend the winter at San Remo. He had taken her there, had seen her safely installed, and—had met an acquaintance who had persuaded him to spend a night at Monte Carlo on the way home. From that point on, of course, the story needed no telling. But the practical upshot of it was that the boy had in his purse, at that moment, precisely sixty-five centimes in money, and a twenty-five-centime stamp; he had nothing wherewith to pay the journey home, and he was some pounds in debt to his friend.
Truly, all things are relative in life. While some men were forfeiting their thousands at the tables with comparative equanimity, this lad was wellnigh losing his reason for the sake of some fifteen pounds.
"What friends had he at home?" was of course Lady Munro's first question. "Had he a father—a mother?"
His mother was dead, and his father—his father was very stern, and not at all rich. It had not been an easy matter for him to send his daughter to the Riviera.
"That is what makes it so dreadful," said the lad. "I wish to heaven I had taken a return ticket! but I wanted to go home by steamer from Marseilles. The fatal moment was when I encroached on my journey-money. After I had done that, of course I had to go on to replace it: but the luck was dead against me. Oh, if I could only recall that first five francs! If I could have foreseen this—but I meant——"
"You meant to win, of course," said Lady Munro kindly.
The boy laughed shamefacedly, in the midst of his misery.
"Well, I think my punishment equals my sin," he said. "I would gladly live on bread and water for months, if I could undo two days of my life. I keep thinking round and round in a circle, till I am nearly mad. I cannot write to my father, and yet what else can I do?"
Lady Munro was silent for a few minutes when the lad had finished speaking. She was wondering what Sir Douglas would say. When a married woman is called upon to help her fellows, she has much to think of besides her own generous impulses; and in Lady Munro's case it was well perhaps that this was so. She would empty her purse for the needy as readily as she would empty it for some jewel that took her fancy, sublimely regardless in the one case as in the other of the wants of the morrow. Ah, well! it is a good thing for mankind that a perfect woman is not always essential to the rôle of ministering angel!
"I will try to help you," she said at last, "though I cannot absolutely promise. In the meantime here is a napoleon. That will take you to Cannes, and pay for a night's lodging. Call on me to-morrow between ten and eleven." She handed him her card. "I think," she added as an afterthought, "you will promise not to enter the Casino again?"