Court Netherleigh: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Robert, you look conscious. Have you learnt to gamble?"

"Oh, it's nothing," said Robert, confusedly. "I may play a little now and then."

"Do not shirk the question. Have you taken to play?"

"A little, I tell you. Never mind. It's my own affair."

"You were playing last night?"

"Well—yes, I was. Very little."

"Lose or win?" asked Oscar, carelessly.

"Oh, I lost," answered Robert. "The luck was against me."

"Now, my good fellow, do you know what you had best do? Go home to Moat Grange, and get out of this set; I know what gamesters are; they never let a pigeon off till he is stripped of his last feather. Leave with me for the Grange today, and cheat them; and stop there until the mania for play shall have left you, though it should be years to come."

Ah, how heartily Robert Dalrymple wished in his heart that he could do it!—that he could break through the net in which he was involved, in more ways than one! "I cannot go to Moat Grange," he answered.