pounds or not one penny. . . . In which case we can make a fresh start. . . ."
Lambert eyed him with curiosity, sympathetically too, for the young man was in a state of terrible mental agitation, whilst he himself felt cooler than before.
Endicott dealt each of the two opponents a card face downwards, but even as he did so, the one which he had dealt to Lambert fluttered to the ground.
He stooped and picked it up.
Segrave's eyes at the moment were fixed on his own card, Lambert's on the face of his opponent. No one else in the room was paying any attention to the play of the two young men, for everyone was busy with his own affairs. Play was general, the hour late. The wines had been heady, and all tempers were at fever pitch.
No one, therefore, was watching Endicott's movements at the moment when he ostensibly stooped to pick up the fallen card.
"It is not faced," he said, "what shall we do?"
"Give it to Master Lambert forsooth," quoth Mistress Endicott, "'tis unlucky to re-deal . . . providing," she added artfully, "that Master Segrave hath no objection."
"Nay! nay!" said the latter. "Begad! why should we stop the game for a trifle?"
Then as Lambert took the card from Endicott and casually glanced at it, Segrave declared:
"Queen!"
"King!" retorted Lambert, with the same perfect calm. "King of diamonds . . . that card has been persistently faithful to me to-night."
"The devil himself hath been faithful to you, Master Lambert . . ." said Segrave tonelessly, "you have the hell's own luck. . . . What do I pay you now?"
"It was double or quits, Master Segrave," rejoined Lambert, "which brings it up to two hundred pounds. . . . You will do me the justice to own that I did not seek this game."
In his heart he had already resolved not to make use of his own winnings. Somehow as in a flash of intuition he perceived the whole tragedy of dishonor and of ruin which seemed to be writ on his opponent's face. He understood that what he had regarded as a toy — welcome no doubt, but treacherous for all that — was a matter of life or death — nay! more mayhap to that pallid youth, with the hectic flush, the unnaturally bright eyes and trembling hands.
There was silence for a while round the green-topped table, whilst thoughts, feelings, presentiments of very varied kinds congregated there. With Endicott and his wife, and also with Sir Marmaduke, it was acute tension, the awful nerve strain of anticipation. The seconds for them seemed an eternity, the obsession of waiting was like lead on their brains.
During that moment of acute suspense Richard Lambert was quietly co-ordinating his thoughts.
With that one mental flash-light which had shown up to him the hitherto unsuspected tragedy, the latent excitement in him had vanished. He saw his own weakness in its true light, despised himself for having yielded, and looked upon the heap of gold before him as so much ill-gotten wealth, which it would be a delight to restore to the hand from whence it came.
He heartily pitied the young man before him, and was forming vague projects of how best to make him understand in private and without humiliation that the money which he had lost would be returned to him in full. Strangely enough he was still holding in his hand that king of diamonds which Endicott had dealt to him.
CHAPTER XIX
DISGRACE
Segrave, too, had been silent, of course. In his mind there was neither suspense nor calm. It was utter, dull and blank despair which assailed him, the ruin of his fondest hopes, an awful abyss of disgrace, of punishment, of death at best, which seemed to yawn before him from the other side of the baize-covered table.
Instinct — that ever-present instinct of self-control peculiar to the gently-bred race of mankind — caused him to make frantic efforts to keep himself and his nerves in check. He would — even at this moment of complete ruin — have given the last shreds of his worldly possessions to be able to steady the febrile movements of his hand.
The pack of cards was on the table, just as Endicott had put it down, after dealing, with the exception of the queen of hearts in front of Segrave and the lucky king of diamonds on which Lambert was still mechanically gazing.
He was undoubtedly moved by the desire to hide the trembling of his hands and the gathering tears in his eyes when he began idly to scatter the pack upon the table, spreading out the cards, fingering them one by one, setting his teeth the while lest that latent cry of misery should force its way across his lips.
Suddenly he paused in this idle fingering of the cards. His eyes which already were burning with hot tears, seemed to take on an almost savage glitter. A hoarse cry escaped his parched lips.
"In the name of Heaven, Master Segrave, what ails you?" cried Endicott with well-feigned concern.
Segrave's hand wandered mechanically to his own neck; he tugged at the fastening of his lace collar, as if, in truth, he were choking.
"The king. . . . The king of diamonds," he murmured in a hollow voice. "Two . . . two kings of diamonds. . . ."
He laughed, a long, harsh laugh, the laugh of a maniac, or of a man possessed, whilst one long thin finger pointed tremblingly to the card still held by Richard Lambert, and then to its counterpart in the midst of the scattered pack.
That laugh seemed to echo all round the room. Dames and cavaliers, players and idlers, looked up to see whence that weird sound had come. Instinctively the crowd drew nigh, dice and cards were pushed aside. Some strange drama was being enacted between two young men, more interesting even than the caprices of Fortune.
But already Endicott and also Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse had followed the beckonings of Segrave's feverish hand.
There could be no mistake in what they saw nor yet in the ominous consequences which it foretold. There was a king of diamonds in the scattered pack of cards upon the table, and yet the card which Lambert held, in consequence of which he had just won two hundred pounds, was also the king of diamonds.
"Two kings of diamonds . . . by all that's damnable!" quoth Lord Walterton, who had been the first to draw nigh.
"But in Heaven's name, what does it all mean?" exclaimed Lambert, gazing at the two cards, hearing the comments round him, yet utterly unable to understand.
Segrave jumped to his feet.
"It means, young man," he ejaculated in a wild state of frenzy, maddened by his losses, his former crime, his present ruin, "it means that you are a damned thief."
And with frantic, excited gesture he gathered up the cards and threw them violently into Richard Lambert's face.
A curious sound went round the room — a gasp, hardly a cry — and all those present held their breath, silent, appalled at the terrible tragedy expressed by these two young men standing face to face on the brink of a deathly and almost blasphemous conflict.
Mistress Endicott was the first to utter a cry.
"Silence!
