He feared each moment that he would awake, that he would find it all a dream, and behold again the soul-sickening image of his dreadful crime leering at him with mocking eyes.
“The package will be quite bulky, and I will loan you a small portmanteau,” said Flood, placing the satchel mentioned and several bundles of bank-notes and bonds upon the table.
Kendall tottered nearer, then suddenly gave way to sobs and covered his face with his hands.
“Oh, God! God above!” he cried brokenly. “Flood, you do not know, you cannot know, what this means to me!”
Moses Flood drew himself up and laid his hand on the speaker’s shoulder.
“Kendall,” said he, with grave austerity, “you are not rightly tempered to be a gamester. Take the advice of a gamester, however, and for the sake of those who love you, if not for your own, never again face a faro layout or play a card for money.”
“Never, never, so help me God!” cried Kendall, with uplifted hands.
“If you adhere to that vow, I shall not feel to-night that I have suffered any loss,” said Flood, with a strange light upon his white, forceful face.
Then he tossed into the satchel the deck of cards with which he had dealt the game.
“I shall give you those cards also, Kendall,” said he oddly. “They are the ones I have been using. Keep them until I come and demand them of you. Some day you may know why I ask you to do this. Some day I may wish to recall to your mind what I to-night have—— Ah, but it does not matter.”