bank, instead of getting a letter of credit
on a London one. I wish, too, that you
had adhered to the letter of my instructions,
as the merchant reasonably complains of
my raising the price I proposed. You will
please to return him the difference at once,
and I will give you a useful little business
hint, which may be valuable. That
insignificant rise in price which you squeezed out
of him, may cost me the loss of thousands.
Do you not see? And above all, I conjure you
be most cautious about the gambling: I say
this most seriously—for the moment I read
the fine speeches and sentiments, in some
diary or letter of yours, I will own to you
I began to have misgivings. Get the letter
of credit at once, and send it to me by this
night's post,"

Now this is falling low indeed! So he
suspects me; he does not trust me. How
dare he be so insolent, because he assisted
me with his few pounds? Restore my health
indeed! He has destroyed it—ruined me for
ever—I feel my heart and nerves worn away
—weary and inflamed to a degree I shall
never get over. A sword seems to have
entered into me. O that I had never come
here, and had sunk down, out of this vile
world—as I was then. I must go into
Frankfort, and take my load with me.

I just meet Grainger, who looks at me
curiously, and with an air of insolent
inquiry as it seems to me.

"Down in the mouth," he says: "I told
you there was no beating the bank. Heavily
hit, I see."

My humiliation and despair could not
let me stand this, and I said, passing on,

"Nothing of the kind."

"Are you serious? What! Been
winning on the system, eh?"

"Neither one nor the other," I said,
angrily. "I am not well, and do not want
to be catechised."

"My good friend," he said, "it is only
the regular epidemic of the place. The
losing sickness. Bless you, why keep up
subterfuges with me? Surely I know it
all. A croupier told me. You lost every
halfpenny last night. You haven't
anything to bring you back, you know you
haven't."

Here was humiliation.

"Now don't," he said; "don't vent it
on me; but let us see what is to be done.
As for a pauper like me lending you the
money——"

"Indeed, I should scorn to ask it——"

"It would be no use, I am telling you.
So I tell you fairly. But I tell you what,
I give you this valuable bit of advice.
Leave by to-night's train, or by the four
train, which is the earliest."

"I want no advice," I said; "and pray,
if I have lost everything, how am I to go?
O God help me, Grainger, what am I
saying or doing? I am wretched ruined
and death is the only thing to think of."

He looked at me steadily a moment.

"I once was precisely in that way, but
no one pitied me, and I got over it, and
saw what a ridiculous thing it would be to
be talking of death. But, my good friend,
you must do something. The banker will
advance you the money on the strength of
your connexion with Mr. Bernard."

"That would be robbery and gambling
too; I have no right to borrow what I
could not pay."

"Well, then I tell you seriously, there
is only one other course; you will scout
it, but it is the only rational one. You
must get back some of your money."

"Get it back from them! Why they
have no hearts—no pity."

"You talk like a child—I mean by
play."

I recoiled.

"Go near that cursed board again? no,
never! never! I shall die first."

"Die for sixty or seventy pounds! I
tell you I am serious. Take five naps; you
have lost so much, it will add five more
to the lost. Those five may bring you
thirty—I don't think more—but I tell you
solemnly, it is the only chance, and it has
happened again and again. I know it is
a desperate chance; but you had better
think of it."

He has left me, and I am thinking of it,
and shall think of it as I am in the train.
O, but there is but one devouring feeling at
my heart, to fly at once—this moment—
from this place. The very name "kursaal"
makes my pulse go. The very look of their
red palace is as the sight of a drop to a
murderer.

Seven o'clock.—Returned from Frankfort.
Alone in the carriage all the way—
alone with a lump of lead laid on my heart,
which yet went heaving and heaving
wearily—alone with my hot damp wrists
and galloping pulse. That imprisonment
in a railway carriage, with a misery at your
heart, is the greatest of agonies. I would
have given worlds to get free, walk about,
leave my self behind, but I seemed to be bound
down by steel bands. It was hours long—
no hope before me! How shall I tell her—