greatest coolness, and no onlooker, however keen, would have seen any change of countenance, even when the game depended upon the odd trick, and £1000 on the game.

Darcy was fascinated. It was a dangerous initiation, and . promised to test Sir Philip's theory; for the young fellow, as he looked on, was conscious that he could play the game fully as well as any of the veterans, whose play smacked of the Regency, and was considerably behind the mark of the present day; for whist is an eminently progressive game, and improves with advancing civilisation. Darcy wished to join.

Sir Philip discerned his wishes. "I see, Darcy," said he, "you think you know the game. You must learn it sooner or later, and I believe you could hardly get a better initiation than at present. Cut in-I will be your banker for £200. I believe," said he, "the young scamp plays better than any of us."

Sir Lawrance Baynam looked as if he would have objected. He deprecated soiling so fresh a mind with the sordid passion of gambling; but Lord Grahame made no objections; and Sir Hugh Gray, who had been losing, was scarcely pleased with so young a hand in room of Sir Philip; for they had already cut, and Baynam and Darcy would be partners.

But if Sir Hugh expected an easy victim he was somewhat mistaken. Darcy over-played them all, and both Lord Grahame and Sir Hugh began to look serious, as game after game went against them. At last Baynam, who did not wish that either his lordship or Sir Hugh should be heavy losers, which seemed likely to be the case with the present run of luck, proposed breaking up the party. But Lord Grahame objected. He had already lost £500, which was more than his quarter's allowance, and it would have been hard to leave London for the country in the height of the season, for it was his lordship's practice not to play beyond his ready money. If that was lost he returned to the country to his nephew, the Earl La Chapelle's seat, and remained there till next quarter-day; and to-day, by a mere greenhorn, he had lost all but £100. He would have one trial more; it was against his rule, but the best men violate rules occasionally. He was rewarded for his gallantry. He cut Darcy as a partner, and fortune, like a true woman, was still on the side of youth. In an hour Darcy was a gainer of £1000.

The experiment, Sir Philip thought, had continued long enough. It did not promise to succeed as he had calculated, and this was clearly shown when he tried to induce Darcy to leave off. That young gentleman coolly remarked that "being so large a gainer it would not be fair in him to break up the party unless the other gentlemen wished it." As the o her gentlemen did not wish it Sir Pap was obliged to acquiesce.

This was Count Gren

But a new combatant entered the field. ville, an attache of the French Embassy, well known to the habitués of the club, and, like all diplomatists, a lover of whist. He was greeted warmly by all the gentlemen present, with the exception of Sir Philip, to whom he appeared to be a stranger. Nor did the Baronet avail himself of the introduction which took place; for Sir Philip had long since closed his book of intimacies, and in particular he shrank from any familiarity with a foreigner. He resumed the Review he had laid down, and appeared absorbed in its contents.

Grenville joined the whist party, and Lord Grahame, having lost the cut, joined Sir Philip, with whom he entered into conversation, which, to judge from the low tone in which it was carried on, was of a private and interesting nature.

Meanwhile whist continued at the table with varying successsteady, silent, serious play, but, ultimately, fortune deserted Darcy, and his winnings were rapidly transferred to the pockets of Grenville. Sir Philip availed himself of the change to endeavour to induce our hero to leave, but he was no longer amenable to command or persuasion; with flushed brow, stern lip, and glittering eye the young man had surrendered himself to the demon of gambling. Within a short time much of the freshness of youth had been tarnished by one of the most sordid but most universal and most overpowering of passions. Verily the experiment had gone far enough, and Sir Philip could now address his homilies to one not ignorant of the vice they were intended to denounce. But it was not a place for a homily, nor did time admit. It was near midnight, and Sir Philip had to start early next morning for the Continent. It was necessary to leave without seeing the full development of his experiment. The elders also were tired, and the result was that Darcy and Grenville were left alone.

To do the latter justice, he wished also to stop playing; but he was in the same predicament as Darcy had been sometime before, namely, a large gainer, and against Darcy's will it was difficult for him to get away.

The game was changed from whist to piquet, nor were the two unmatched; but fortune continued in the same direction, and Darcy's losses increased. He did not, however, neglect one point of the game, but played steadily on as if the stake were no higher than those admitted in the decorous rectory when the Rector and he occasionally took a hand at this almost classical game. The stakes were increased, and fortune vouchsafed a gleam of success to Darcy, but only again to desert him. It was a case of dragging the devil by the tail, an operation which whoever attempts will not quite satisfactory. By two in the morning Darcy had lost £5000. By

mutual consent the play was limited to two hours longer, and at its expiry Darcy's losses amounted to £7000.

The result sobered him. It had been a costly experiment. Perhaps Sir Philip Warden's expectations will be realised, and that of this kind of wild-oats no more will be sown. Such, at least, was Darcy's resolution; and though all mankind imitate the father of lies, in being saintly when sick, there are yet a few who do not follow his example when they recover, and Darcy, then and there, took a vow to abjure gambling in future, and kept his vow tolerably well. Meantime it was necessary to settle, and our hero, with a composure which a finished gambler would envy, wrote out an I O U and handed it to the Count. But a Frenchman when lucky is sublime. Grenville would not receive the document. He needed no voucher, he said; Monsieur would pay when convenient, and our hero put the acknowledgment into his pocket.

They sat, these two men, whose nerves had just been strung to the highest tension, for two hours more together, talking quietly and calmly on the topics of the day. It was a matter of high art with the Count, the fruit of great experience; with Darcy it was the gift of nature, coolness and aplomb were the characteristics of the young man, intensified, as all natural tendencies are in man, with whom the intellectual nature prodominates, by the literature he selects; and with Darcy his habitual reading had consisted of novels and history in which moral courage is the great virtue round which all others are supposed to cluster, and without which there cannot, it seems, be a hero either in fact or in fiction.

The Count was the principal speaker, Darcy being as yet ignorant of London and its doings; and perhaps it was the attractions of the monologue which induced the Frenchman to sit so long. At last, however, they left the club together arm-in-arm.

They proceeded to Westminster Bridge. The Count's residence was on the Surrey side, while Darcy had secured his bedroom for the night in one of the hotels in the Strand. He saw his companion to the bridge, and then bade him a cordial farewell.

But our hero was feverish and unwilling to go home, and felt a necessity to take a stroll in the cool silence before going to bed; so after retracing his steps for a few yards it struck him he might as well have the pleasure of the Count's company, and turning back he quickened his pace to overtake him.

The night was cold and dark, but not foggy, and the light of the lamps admitted of seeing some distance in advance. He saw Grenville indistinctly about the middle of the bridge. Darcy was at this time passing the Westminster Tavern when he saw the shadow of two men dart from the recess of the bridge and

clearly identify, fall.

attack Grenville. He ran on to assist; but when still two hundred yards distant he saw the Count, whom he could now Darcy shouted at the pitch of his voice. and ran as fast as he could. The robbers, or murderers, heard him and turned round. They hesitated, but only for a instant. He heard one say to the other throw him over, and then they lifted up the body, poised it for an instant on the parapet, and let it fall. Then they fled.

Darcy arrived at the scene of the struggle breathless. He leant over the parapet of the bridge, but nothing could be distinctly seen. But from the faint light of the phosphorescent water he thought he saw something black clinging to the abutment. He leapt back and as he reached the footpath he saw a watch and a neckerchief, which he hastily picked up.

Then he sped back to the London side shouting murder and calling police; but at that hour there were no passengers, the policeman was off his beat, and it was not till he had reached the palace-tower that a policeman could be found. Then, indeed, the the alarm was given, the policeman sprung his rattle, and immediately converging from different directions, eight or nine of the force arrived, a boat was quickly secured, torches were lighted, and Darcy seated on the prow of the boat directed the men to row to the place where the body had been thrown over.

It was found at once jammed up to the abutment which had prevented the tide sweeping it down. The Count was quite dead. His handsome face was colourless, save where the blood coagulated on his brow, the effect of a concussion received either in the scuffle or from the pier in his fall.

Darcy was horror-struck. The man with whom he had just ten minutes before been gaily conversing, the handsome, welldressed distinguished gentleman, so thoroughbred, was a disfigured corpse, the clothes torn and soiled by the water of the river, the hair dripping, the eyes starting half-out of their sockets, the mouth open as if gasping for air, the body rigid, save that the arms swung listlessly to and fro, as the corpse was lifted into the boat.

The policemen rowed quickly back to the Westminster Tavern, into which, after a little delay, they got admittance. There every effort was used to restore animation, in which Darcy assisted; but to no purpose, and a neighbouring doctor, who soon arrived, ascertained that there were no hopes. The skull had been fractured, and the man must have died almost immediately. Darcy could be of no further use; he was informed that the inquest would be held in the tavern by 10 o'clock that morning, and, it having been arranged that all who were present should attend it, Darcy gave the watch and the necktie to the policeman, and left the place.

He walked slowly to his hotel. His mind was in a state of Dewilderment. One conviction came out of the state of mental confusion. and it was this-that a great radical change had somehow or other been effected in his nature. He, Darcy, the morning before, was an inexperienced youth, almost a schoolboy; now he seemed suddenly to have become years older. He seemed, to himself, to have turned a corner in his journey of life; and a totally new, but very misty, prospect opened with thunder-clouds on the horizon.

Darcy did not attend the inquest next morning. To explain the reason it is necessary to transport the reader some three or four hundred miles from London.