“So ’tis, Nick.”
“There is something in the wind. He has got rid of his dealer and sent his lookout from the chair. By all that’s good and great, Chick, I believe he’s up to some extraordinary move.”
“You’ll wait to see?”
“I should say so.”
None of this was overheard by others, and the two detectives gave no sign of observing anything unusual. It took Nick’s keen eyes and broad experience, moreover, to detect in Moses Flood the slightest indication of what he had in mind.
Flood had reverted to the table, and the light again fell full on his face. It was pale, yet composed; stern, yet not evil; expressive, yet changeless.
He was thinking of the girl to whose hand he had aspired, of the rector whose censorious words still were ringing in his ears; and he was thinking, too, of the wretched man seated opposite, a man who had fallen lower and sinned deeper than he had ever done.
He was about to do what only one man in millions would have done. He believed what the rector had told him, that Dora Royal loved this man, who, were his sin to be brought home to him, would become a criminal at law and an outcast of society.
For the sake of the girl, and to preserve her happiness, Moses Flood, looking for no return, not so much even as a smile of gratitude, was about to secretly sacrifice a goodly part of his fortune upon the altar of his own hopeless affection.
He had spoken the truth, this man, when he said, “Even a gamester may love nobly, and be capable of great self-sacrifice.”