The Heart of a Mystery

by T. W. Speight

"Not the ghost of one."

"Why don't you join ours at Dulminster? Very small and select, and all that. Say the word, and I'll propose you at the next meeting."

"Awfully good of you, but this is the first word I've heard about it."

"Why not run over by the five-thirty train on Friday next, and pick a bit of dinner with me? We'll go on to the club afterwards, where I'll introduce you to half a score 'Bons Frères'--that's what we call ourselves--jolly good fellows one and all!"

The invitation so frankly given was as frankly accepted. Frank was introduced to the Club in due course, and was presently proposed and elected.

Mr. Crofts had spoken no more than the truth when he said that the club was small and select. In point of fact it was neither more nor less than a little coterie of gamblers. There were the usual reading, smoking, and billiard-rooms, but the card-room was the real focus of attraction. Frank, who like his father was a born gambler, entered heartily into the thing, and before long got into the way of spending three or four evenings a week at the "Bons Frères." The last train between Dulminster and Ashdown left the former place a quarter of an hour before midnight, but when Frank chanced to miss it--which he usually did at least once a week--there was always a bed for him at his friend's, while the eight o'clock morning train landed him at Ashdown in ample time for business.

It was scarcely to be expected that Frank should content himself with a quiet pool at billiards, while such exciting games as baccarat and unlimited loo were in progress in the next room. Accordingly his cue was left to languish on the wall, and he turned his attention wholly to that other board of green cloth which for him was by far the more seductive of the two. Occasionally he rose from the table a winner, but fortune frowned on him far oftener than she smiled. The fact was that both by nature and disposition Frank was too rash and impulsive to be evenly matched as against certain cool and cautious habitués of the club--old hands who look upon the card-table as a regular source of income, and never throw away a chance. But although he lost and lost again, his ardor for play in nowise abated; rather, indeed, did it seem to grow the fiercer with the gradual lightening of his pockets.

Mrs. Derison had always insisted on Frank's putting aside a certain portion of his salary, month by month, in the Ashdown Savings' Bank, and the amount thus laid by had by this time accumulated to something like a hundred and fifty pounds. On this fund Frank now began to draw, of course without his mother's knowledge, in order to enable him to meet his losses at cards, Five or six weeks sufficed to make a big hole in his small capital, but still, with the gambler's desperate recklessness, he kept on his course, convinced from day to day that "luck" must change in his favor, and fatuously failing to recognize the fact that he was being quietly but effectually fleeced, and that without any suspicion of cheating on their part, by men far cleverer than himself.

Now that Edward Hazeldine, urged thereto by his brother, had resolved, as far as in him lay, to annul the act of wrongdoing to which he had unwillingly lent himself; now that an intolerable burden had been lifted off his life and his self-respect had in some measure come back to him, he resolved, at the earliest opportunity, to carry out his long-cherished intention of proposing to Miss Winterton. By this time the family at Seaham Lodge were back from Torquay, but Edward did not feel that he should be justified in going over there specially and asking for an interview with Miss Winterton. He must wait till he was invited by his Lordship, and then make his opportunity as best he could. As it fell out he had not long to wait. The Earl wanted to see him on business matters, but being laid up with gout, could not leave home, consequently Edward must go to the Lodge. It was further intimated to him that her Ladyship would be pleased for him to stay and dine.

Having finished his business with the Earl in good time, Edward went in search of Miss Winterton. There was a chance of securing a quarter of an hour alone with her before dinner, but not much likelihood of being able to do so later on. A servant directed him, and he found her in the terrace garden. They had not met for nearly four months.