Lynn was as silent as Anne herself, but he quietly placed himself, standing, beside her, thinking as he did this and glanced at her that the look of exaltation on Anne's white, still face must have been the look that the martyrs wore when they entered the arena to confront the wild beasts. He felt awed by the solemnity of the scene. He hardly dared move or speak, it so weighed upon him, but he explained the rules and the terms of the game as simply and as briefly as he could. He never forgot the sudden dilation of Anne's eyes and the dimness that followed, as though the white light behind them had suddenly flared high before going out, when he first put the cards in her hands and the game began.
"You must draw—you draw to a straight flush. Mr. Watson stands pat," said Lynn, in a hushed tone, feeling as if he were desecrating some holy place—starting at the sound of his own voice as though it sounded through a cathedral.
"I draw to a straight flush. Mr. Watson stands pat," repeated Anne's pale lips, as a pious soul in extremity might murmur a Latin prayer which it did not understand.
"Now you raise him," prompted Lynn.
"Now I raise you," echoed Anne.
"Ah, he calls you and takes the pot."
"He calls me and takes the pot."
Thus begun, the game went on by surer degrees through the terrible hours of the horrible night, till a later bedtime than Tom Watson had known since he had ceased to be the keeper of his own time. The next morning it was resumed as soon as breakfast was over, and continued day after day and night after night. The teacher wearied after the first day, though he came oftener than he might have been expected to come, since he was young and happy, and there were other and pleasanter things drawing him away. But Anne learned fast—faster, perhaps, than she had ever learned anything else. There are few things that the slowest-witted woman cannot learn when her whole heart and soul hang upon the learning. It was therefore not long before she could play alone, after a fashion, and from that time on she played ceaselessly through every waking moment, stopping only for the meals that neither husband nor wife could eat. So that every morning Anne sat down to the card-table, silently imploring pardon for the sin which she was about to commit; every night she lay wearily down on her sleepless bed, praying for forgiveness for the sin which she had committed during the day. And always Anne played with the unaltered belief—firm as her belief in the plan of salvation—that she staked on every game the relief of her husband's body against the saving of his soul.