Edwards was delirious one night, and astonished the housekeeper, a motherly dame who sat up with him, by his talk on the occasion.
“Look here!” he said; and thinking he wanted drink or something she got out of her chair and leaned over him; “let us have five shillings on the black this time; it has gone red four times running, and that can’t go on, can it?”
“Certainly not,” said Mrs Blobbs, wondering whatever the boy’s distracted fancy was running on. “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” he then cried. “I’ll have nothing to say to it. Let us stand our chance rather. Not that way; not that way; no, no, that’s making bad worse. I won’t! I won’t!”
That was only one night, however, the third after the accident, and he was all right in his head next morning, only so terribly depressed. Saurin never came near him.
Chapter Seventeen.
Compounding a Felony.
“I know what is the matter with you,” said Crawley, replacing the pieces on a backgammon board at the end of the game.
“Do you?” replied Edwards, turning if possible a shade paler, while his heart palpitated under his sore ribs.