“I shuddered. I can remember the horrible, sick sensation that ran through me as he said this, lightly, pleasantly, as if he alluded to a rowing-match I had in view. I saw my mother’s pale face beckoning me to come away—to stop before I ruined her utterly. I almost made a movement to rise, but something glued me to the chair. The game went on. I again held the bank, and again lost. I had no money about me except the forty pounds or so I had won at the outset; but several leaves out of my pocketbook were strewn about the table bearing I. O. U.’s for nine times that sum. I suppose by this time I had quite lost my senses. I know that I went on betting like a maniac, with the feverish, triumphant impulse of a man in delirium. I was losing tremendously. I remember nothing except the sound of my own voice and Lord George’s calling banco! again and again, and how the cry ran through me like a blade every time, and how I hastily tore out fresh leaves and wrote down the sums I lost, and tossed them to the winner, and went on. All this time we had been drinking deeply of brandy and water. I was naturally abstemious, but to-night I drank recklessly. The wonder was—and I was going to say the pity—that it had not stupefied me long ago, and so made me physically incapable of continuing my insane career. But excitement acted, I suppose, as an antidote, and prevented the alcohol from taking effect as it otherwise must have done. At last Hallam came back. I have a vague recollection of hearing him exchange some remarks in an undertone with one of the players, who had given up and was now watching the game with a number of others who had dropped in from adjoining rooms. I then heard him say, ‘Good God! he is ruined twice over!’ I heard nothing more. I had fallen back insensible in my chair. Everybody started up; the cards were dropped, and all was confusion and terror. It appears that at the first moment they thought I was dead. A young guardsman present declared I was, and that it was disease of the heart; a young kinsman of his had dropped down on parade only a month ago just in the same way. There was a cry for a doctor, and two or three ran out to fetch one. Before he arrived, however, I had given signs of returning consciousness. Up to this moment Lord George had been anxiously looking on, silent and pale, they said. He had borne me with Hallam to a couch in the next room, where the air was free from cigar-fumes, and had opened the window to admit the fresh night-breeze. He had done, in fact, what any humane person would have done under the circumstances; but he had done it in a manner that betokened more than ordinary interest. He drew an audible breath of relief the moment he saw my eyelids quiver and heard me breathe like a man awaking to life. Hallam signed to him to leave the room; he did not wish his face to be the first I saw on opening my eyes. Lord George no doubt understood; for he at once withdrew into the card-room. He drew the door after him, but he did not quite close it, so that I heard dreamily, yet distinctly, all that was said. Lord George’s second for the morrow’s meeting, the Hon. Capt. Roper, inquired eagerly how I was going on. ‘Oh! he’ll be all right presently,’ was the reply, spoken in Lord George’s off-hand way. ‘There was nothing to make such a fuss about; the poor devil was scared to see how much money he had lost, and fainted like a girl—that’s all.’
“‘Hallam says he is quite cleared out by to-night’s ill-luck,’ observed some one.
“‘Served him right,’ said Lord George; ‘it will teach puppies of his kind not to come amongst us and make fools of themselves.’
“‘And do you mean to shoot him to-morrow?’ inquired the same voice.
“‘I mean to give him a chance of shooting me; unless,’ he continued—and I saw in imagination, as vividly as if my bodily eyes had seen it, the cold sneer that accompanied the remark—‘unless he shows the white feather and declines fighting, which is just as likely.’
“While this little dialogue had been going on in subdued tones close by the door which opened at the head of the sofa where I lay, Hallam was conversing in animated whispers with two gentlemen in the window. He was not more than a minute absent, when he returned to my side, and, seeing my eyes wide open, exclaimed heartily: ‘Thank God! he’s all right again!’
“I grasped his hand and sat up. They gave me some sal-volatile and water to drink, and I was, as he said, all right again. But it was not the stimulant that restored me, that gave me such sudden energy, and nerved me to act at once, to face my fate and defy it. I took his arm, and led him, or let him lead me, to some quieter place near, and then I asked him how much he thought I had lost.
“‘Don’t think of that yet, my dear fellow,’ he said; ‘you are too done up to discuss it. We will see what can be done to-morrow.’
“‘Five thousand pounds!’ I said. ‘Do you hear that? Five thousand pounds! That means that I am a beggar, which an’t of much consequence; and that I’ve made a beggar of my mother. She will have to sell the bed from under her to pay it, to save my honor. A curse upon me for bringing this blight upon her!’
“‘Tut! tut! man, don’t take on like a woman about it!’ said Hallam. ‘These things can be arranged; no need to make matters out worse than they are. I’ll speak to Lord George, and see what terms we can make with him.’