Henri accompanied the two women to a coach at the door, which had been engaged by the thoughtful and obliging Desvanneaux; and, pressing tenderly the hand of his mistress, he murmured:
“Till to-morrow!”
“To-morrow!” she echoed, her heart oppressed with sad forebodings.
Desvanneaux, whose wife was very jealous of him, made all haste to regain his conjugal abode.
CHAPTER IV. THE RESULT
Meanwhile, Paul Landry had begun badly, and had had some ill turns of luck; nevertheless, feeling that his fortune was about to change, he raised the stakes.
“Does any one take him up?” asked Constantin Lenaeiff.
“I do,” said De Prerolles, who had returned to the table.
And, seizing a pencil that lay on the card-table, he signed four cheques of twenty-five thousand francs each. Unfortunately for him, the next hand was disastrous. The stakes were increased, and the bank was broken several times, when Paul Landry, profiting by a heavy gain, doubled and redoubled the preceding stakes, and beheld mounting before him a pile of cheques and counters.