"Ay," muttered he, below his breath, "she knows who she is now, but she has yet to learn all that others think of her." How bitterly, at that instant, did he reproach himself for having revealed his secret! A thousand times better to have relinquished all ambition, and preserved the warm and confiding love she bore him. "We might have gone to America,--to Australia. In some far-away country I could easily earn subsistence, and no trace of my former life follow me. She, at least, would not have been lost to me,--her affection would have clung to me through every trial. Mere reverse of fortune--for such and no more had it seemed--would never have chilled the generous glow of her woman's heart, and I need not have shocked her self-love, nor insulted her dignity, by telling her that she was the gambler's daughter."

As he was thus musing, the two travellers came out and seated themselves in the porch; the elder one, needing a light for his cigar, touched his hat to Davis, and muttered some broken words of German, to request permission to light it from him. Grog bowed a stiff acquiescence; and the younger said, "Not over-courteous,--a red Jew, I take it!"

"A travelling jeweller, I fancy," said the other; "twig the smart watch-chain."

Oh, young gentlemen, how gingerly had you trod there if you only knew how thin was the ice under your feet, and how cold the depth beneath it! Davis arose and walked down the street. The mellow notes of a bugle announced the arrival of the post, and the office must now open in a few minutes. Forcing his way through the throng to the open window, he asked if there were any letters for Captain Christopher? None. Any for Captain Davis? None. Any for the Hon. Annesley Beecher? The same reply. He was turning away in disappointment, when a voice called out, "Wait! here's a message just come in from the Telegraph-office. Please to sign the receipt for it." He wrote the name C. Christopher boldly, and pushed his way through the crowd once more.

If his heart throbbed painfully with the intensity of anxiety, his fingers never trembled as he broke the seal of the despatch. Three brief lines were all that were there; but three brief lines can carry the tidings of a whole destiny. We give it as it stood:--

"William Peach to Christopher, Neuwied, in Nassau.

"The Viscount died yesterday, at four p. m. Lawyers want A. B.'s address immediately.

"Proceedings already begun."

Davis devoured the lines four--five times over, and then muttered between his teeth, "Safe enough now,--the match as good as over!"

"I say, George," said one of the young travellers to his companion, "our friend in the green frock must have got news of a prize in the lottery.

Did you ever see anything like his eyes? They actually lit up the blue spectacles."

"Clap the saddle on that black horse," cried Grog, as he passed into the stable; "give him a glass of Kirsch-wasser and bring him round to the door."

"He knows how to treat an old poster," said the ostler; "it's not the first ride he has taken on a courier's saddle."

CHAPTER XI. HOW GROG DAVIS DISCOURSED, AND ANNESLEY BEECHER LISTENED

When Davis reached the little inn at evening, he was surprised to learn that Annesley Beecher had passed the day alone. Lizzy complained of headache, and kept her room. Grog listened to this with a grave, almost stern look; he partly guessed that the ailment was a mere pretext; he knew better to what to attribute her absence. They dined tete-a-tete; but there was a constraint over each, and there was little of that festive enjoyment that graced the table on the day before. Beecher was revolving in his mind all the confessions that burdened his conscience about Stein and the mystical volume he had bought from him; the large sums he had drawn for were also grievous loads upon his heart, and he knew not in what temper or spirit Davis would hear of them. Grog, too, had many things in his head; not, indeed, that he meant to reveal them, but they were like secret instructions to his own heart, to be referred to for guidance and direction.

They sipped their wine under the trellised vines, and smoked their cigars in an atmosphere fragrant with the jessamine and the rose, the crystal river eddying along at their feet, and the purple mountain glowing in the last tints of declining day. "We want Lizzy to enliven us," said Davis, after a long silence on both sides. "We 're dull and heavy without her."

"By Jove! it does make a precious difference whether she's here or not,"

said Beecher, earnestly.

"There's a light-heartedness about that girl does one good," said Davis, as he puffed his cigar. "And she's no fool, either."

"I should think she's not," muttered Beecher, half indignantly.

"It could n't be supposed she should know life like you or me, for instance; she hasn't seen the thing,--never mixed with it; but let the time come that she shall take her part in the comedy, you 'll see whether she 'll not act it cleverly."

"She has head for anything!" chimed in Beecher.

"Ay, and what they call tact too. I don't care what company you place her in; take her among your duchesses to-morrow, and see if she'll not keep her own place,--and that a good one."

Beecher sighed, but it was not in any despondency.

And now a long silence ensued; not a sound heard save the light noise of the bottle as it passed between them, and the long-drawn puffs of smoke that issued from their lips.

"What did you do with Stein? Did he give you the money?" asked Davis, at last.

"Oh yes, he gave it--he gave it freely enough; in fact, he bled so easily that, as the doctors say, I took a good dash from him. You mentioned two thousand florins, but I thought, as I was about it, a little more would do us no harm, and so I said, 'Lazarus, old fellow, what if we make this for ten thousand--"

"Ten thousand!" said Davis, removing his cigar from his lips and staring earnestly, but yet not angrily, at the other.

"Don't you see that as I have the money with me," began Beecher, in a tone of apology and terror, "and as the old fellow didn't put 'the screw on' as to discount--"

"No, he's fair enough about that; indeed, so far as my own experience goes, all Jews are. It's your high-class Christian I'm afraid of; but you took the cash?"

"Yes!" said Beecher, timidly, for he was n't sure he was yet out of danger.

"It was well done,--well thought of," said Grog, blandly. "We 'll want a good round sum to try this new martingale of mine. Opening with five naps, we must be able to bear a run of four hundred and eighty, which, according to the rule of chances, might occur once in seventeen thousand three hundred and forty times."

"Oh, as to that," broke in Beecher, "I have hedged famously. I bought old Stein's conjuring-book; what he calls his 'Kleinod,' showing how every game is to be played, when to lay on, when to draw off. Here it is," said he, producing the volume from his breast-pocket. "I have been over it all day. I tried three problems with the cards myself, but I couldn't make them come up right."

"How did you get him to part with this?" asked Davis, as he examined the volume carefully.

"Well, I gave him a fancy price,--that is, I am to give it, which makes all the difference," said Beecher, laughing. "In short, I gave him a bit of stiff, at three months, for one thousand--"

"Florins?"

"No, pounds,--pounds sterling," said Beecher, with a half-choking effort.

"It _was_ a fancy price," said Grog, slowly, not the slightest sign of displeasure manifesting itself on his face as he spoke.

"You don't think, then, that it was too much?" faltered out Beecher.

"Perhaps not, _under_ the circumstances," said Davis, keenly.

"What do you mean by 'under the circumstances'?"

Davis threw his cigar into the stream, pushed bottle and glasses away from him,--far enough to permit him to rest both his arms on the table,--and then, steadfastly fixing his eyes on the other, with a look of intense but not angry significance, said, "How often have I told you, Beecher, that it was no use to try a 'double' with me? Why, man, I know every card in your hand."

"I give you my sacred word of honor, Grog--"

"To be renewed at three months, I suppose?" said Davis, sneeringly. "No, no, my boy, it takes an earlier rise to get to the blind side of Kit Davis. I 'm not angry with you for trying it,--not a bit, lad; there 's nothing wrong in it but the waste of time."

"May I be hanged, drawn, and quartered, if I know what you are at, Grog!" exclaimed the other, piteously.

"Well, all I can say is _I_ read _you_ easier than _you_ read _me_.

_You_ gave old Lazarus a thousand pounds for that book after reading that paragraph in the 'Times.'"

"What paragraph?"

"I mean that about your brother's title not being legal."

"I never saw it,--never heard of it," cried Beecher, in undisguised terror.