It was the haunt of vice, but in no dark alley nor out-of-the-way nook did it seek to hide itself from public contempt. No—it reared its front unblushingly in the public thoroughfare—within sound of the church-going bell—it was fitted up with every luxury; silver and gold, polished marble, and costly hangings, in lavish profusion, adorned the place which fostered every malignant and evil passion, and made human beings, endowed with immortal souls, ripe for deeds of desperation. The man who robbed his employer, the defaulter, the forger, the destroyer of female virtue, the murderer, the suicide, each and all of these had been within its walls—each and all of these had taken their first lessons in iniquity in that place, so truly and emphatically called a hell. And it was to this place of pollution that Tremaine was hastening. Here he had staked, and lost, and cursed his ill luck; yet, with the desperate infatuation of a confirmed gamester, he had staked again and again, until all was gone. On entering he looked round with a furtive and eager glance, and, evidently disappointed, sauntered toward a roulette table round which a crowd was standing.
“Do you play to-night?” The speaker was a tall, slender young man, scarcely past his minority, but with a wan, sickly countenance, and the premature stoop of old age. “Do you play to-night?” he repeated.
“I—I believe not,” answered Tremaine, again glancing round the room.
“You are a foolish fellow; the fickle goddess may even now be turning the wheel in your favor. Come,” he continued, laughing, “if you have not been at your banker’s to-day, I have, and can accommodate you with a few hundreds;” and he took a roll of bills from his pocket, and handed them to Tremaine.
“But when shall I return this, Gladsden?”
“Oh, a fortnight hence will be time enough.”
Tremaine turned to the table and staked the money—he won; staked the whole amount—won again; the third time. “You had better stop now,” whispered a voice in his ear. He turned, and saw the person for whom, a short time before, he had been looking so eagerly; but he was elated with success, and paid no heed to the speaker. The fourth—the fifth time, he won. Such a run of luck was most extraordinary; he trembled with excitement, and now determined that he would try but once more, and, if successful, he might yet retrieve the past.
“Are you mad, Tremaine?—you surely will not risk all?” again whispered the voice.
“All or nothing. I am fortune’s chief favorite to-night. All or nothing,” repeated the gamester, as if communing with himself, “all or nothing!”
The bystanders looked on earnestly; for a few moments there was a dead silence—then Tremaine’s face became livid, his brow contracted, and his lips compressed. He had risked all; he had gained—nothing!