"Well, we may breathe awhile," said Kingsley, as we found ourselves
once more in the pure air, and under the blue sky of midnight. "We
have got through an ugly task with tolerable success. You stood by
me like a man, Clifford. I need not tell you how much I thank you."
"I heartily rejoice that you are through with it, Kingsley; but I
am not so sure that we can deliberately approve of everything that
we may have been required by the circumstances of the case to do."
"What! you did not relish the playing? I respect your scruples,
but it does not follow that it must become a habit. You played to
enable a friend to get back from a knave what he lost as a fool,
and to punish the knavery that he could not well hope to reform. I
do not see, considering the amount of possible good which we have
done, that the evil is wholly inexcusable."
"Perhaps not; but this heap of money which I have in my bosom--should
you have taken it?"
"And why not? Whose should it be, if not mine?"
"You took with you but one hundred dollars. I should say you have
more than a thousand here."
"I trust I have," said he coolly. "What of that? I won it fairly,
and he played fairly, until the last moment when everything was at
stake. His false dice were then called in--and would you have me
yield to his roguery what had been the fruits of a fair conflict?
No! no! friend of mine! no! no! all these things did I consider
well before I took you with me to-night. I have been meditating
this business for a week, from the moment when a friendly fellow
hinted to me that I was the victim of knavery."
"But that wallet of money, Kingsley? You assured me that you were
pennyless."
"All! that wallet bedevilled Mr. Latour Cleveland, as it seems to
have bedevilled you. There, by the starlight, look at the contents
of this precious wallet, and see how much further your eyes can
pierce into the mystery of my proceedings.'"
He handed me the wallet, which I opened. To my great surprise, I
found it stuffed with old shreds of newspaper, bits of rag, even
cotton, but not a cent of money.
"There! ara you satisfied? You shall have that wallet, with all
its precious contents, as a keepsake from me. It will remind you of
a strange scene. It will have a history for you when you are old,
which you will tell with a chuckle to your children."
"Children!" I involuntarily murmured, while my voice trembled, and
a tear started to my eye. That one word recalled me back, at once,
to home, to my particular woes--to all that I could have wished
banished for ever, even in the unwholesome stews and steams of a
gaming-house. But Kingsley did not suffer me to muse over my own
afflictions. He did not seem to hear the murmuring exclamation of
my lips. He continued:-"I have no mysteries from you, and you need, as well as deserve,
an explanation. All shall be made clear to you. The reason of this
wallet, and another matter which staggered you quite as much--my
audacious bet of a cool hundred--your own disconsolate hundred--as
a first stake! I have no doubt you thought me mad when you heard
me."