Punctual to his appointment, Sewell appeared at breakfast the next morning with Colonel Cave. Of all the ill-humor and bad conduct of the night before, not a trace now was to be seen. He was easy, courteous, and affable. He even made a half-jesting apology for his late display of bad temper; attributing it to an attack of coming gout. “So long as the malady,” said he, “is in a state of menace, one's nerves become so fine-strung that there is no name for the irritability; but when once a good honest seizure has taken place, a man recovers himself, and stands up to his suffering manfully and well.

“To-day, for instance,” said he, pointing to a shoe divided by long incisions, “I have got my enemy fixed, and I let him do his worst.”

The breakfast proceeded pleasantly; Cave was in admiration of his guest's agreeability; for he talked away, not so much of things as of people. He had in a high degree that-man-of-the-world gift of knowing something about every one. No name could turn up of which he could not tell you something the owner of it had said or done, and these “scratch” biographies are often very amusing, particularly when struck off with the readiness of a practised talker.

It was not, then, merely that Sewell obliterated every memory of the evening before, but he made Cave forget the actual object for which he had come that morning. Projects, besides, for future pleasure did Sewell throw out, like a man who had both the leisure, the means, and the taste for enjoyment. There was some capital shooting he had just taken; his neighbor, an old squire, had never cared for it, and let him have it “for a song.” They were going to get up hack races, too, in the Park,—“half-a-dozen hurdles and a double ditch to tumble over,” as he said, “will amuse our garrison fellows,—and my wife has some theatrical intentions—if you will condescend to help her.”

Sewell talked with that blended munificence and shiftiness, which seems a specialty with a certain order of men. Nothing was too costly to be done, and yet everything must be accomplished with a dexterity that was almost a dodge. The men of this gift are great scene-painters. They dash you off a view—be it a wood or a rich interior, a terraced garden or an Alpine hut—in a few loose touches. Ay! and they “smudge” them out again before criticism has had time to deal with them. “By the way,” cried he, suddenly, stopping in the full swing of some description of a possible regatta, “I was half forgetting what brought me here this morning. I am in your debt, Cave.”

He stopped as though his speech needed some rejoinder, and Cave grew very red and very uneasy—tried to say something—anything—but could not. The fact was, that, like a man who had never in all his life adventured on high play or risked a stake that could possibly be of importance to him, he felt pretty much the same amount of distress at having won as he would have felt at having lost. He well knew that if by any mischance he had incurred such a loss as a thousand pounds, it would have been a most serious embarrassment—by what right, then, had he won it? Now, although feelings of this sort were about the very last to find entrance into Sewell's heart, he well knew that there were men who were liable to them, just as there were people who were exposed to plague or yellow fever, and other maladies from which he lived remote. It was, then, with a sort of selfish delight that he saw Cave's awkward hesitating manner, and read the marks of the shame that was overwhelming him.

“A heavy sum too,” said Sewell, jauntily; “we went the whole 'pot' on that last rubber.”

“I wish I could forget it—I mean,” muttered Cave, “I wish we could both forget it.”

“I have not the least objection to that,” said Sewell gayly; “only let it first be paid.”

“Well, but—what I meant was—what I wanted to say, or rather, what I hoped—was—in plain words, Sewell,” burst he out, like a man to whom desperation gave courage,—“in plain words, I never intended to play such stakes as we played last night,—I never have—I never will again.”

“Not to give me my revenge?” said Sewell, laughing.

“No, not for anything. I don't know what I 'd have done—I don't know what would have become of me—if I had lost; and I pledge you my honor, I think the next worst thing is to have won.”

“Do you, by George!”

“I do, upon my sacred word of honor. My first thoughts on waking this morning were more wretched than they have been for any day in the last twenty years of life, for I was thoroughly ashamed of myself.”

“You 'll not find many men afflicted with your malady, Cave; and, at all events, it's not contagious.”

“I know nothing about that,” said Cave, half irritably; “I never was a play man, and have little pretension to understand their feelings.”

“They have n't got any,” said Sewell, as he lit his cigar.

“Perhaps not; so much the worse for them. I can only say, if the misery of losing be only proportionate to the shame of winning, I don't envy a gambler. Such an example, too, to exhibit to my young officers! It was too bad—too bad.”

“I declare I don't understand this,” said Sewell, carelessly; “when I commanded a battalion, I never imagined I was obliged to be a model to the subs or the junior captains.” The tone of banter went, this time, to the quick; and Cave flushed a deep crimson, and said,—“I'm not sorry that my ideas of my duty are different; though, in the present case, I have failed to fulfil it.”

“Well, well, there's nothing to grow angry about,” said Sewell, laughing, “even though you won't give me my revenge. My present business is to book up;” and, as he spoke, he sat down at the table, and drew a roll of papers from his pocket and laid it before him.

“You distress me greatly by all this, Sewell,” said Cave, whose agitation now almost overcame him. “Cannot we hit upon some way? can't we let it lie over? I mean,—is there no arrangement by which this cursed affair can be deferred? You understand me?”

“Not in the least. Such things are never deferred without loss of honor to the man in default. The stake that a man risks is supposed to be in his pocket, otherwise play becomes trade, and accepts all the vicissitudes of trade.”

“It's the first time I ever heard them contrasted to the disparagement of honest industry.”

“And I call billiards, tennis, whist, and ÉcartÉ honest industries, too, though I won't call them trades. There, there,” said he, laughing at the other's look of displeasure, “don't be afraid; I am not going to preach these doctrines to your young officers, for whose morals you are so much concerned. Sit down here, and just listen to me for one moment.”

Cave obeyed, but his face showed in every feature how reluctantly.

“I see, Cave,” said Sewell, with a quiet smile,—“I see you want to do me a favor,—so you shall. I am obliged to own that I am an exception to the theory I have just now enunciated. I staked a thousand pounds, and I had not the money in my pocket. Wait a moment,—don't interrupt me. I had not the money in gold or bank-notes, but I had it here”—and he touched the papers before him—“in a form equally solvent, only that it required that he who won the money should be not a mere acquaintance, but a friend,—a friend to whom I could speak with freedom and in confidence. This,” said he, “is a bond for twelve hundred pounds, given by my wife's guardian in satisfaction of a loan once made to him; he was a man of large fortune, which he squandered away recklessly, leaving but a small estate, which he could neither sell nor alienate. Upon this property this is a mortgage. As an old friend of my father-in-law,—a very unworthy one, by the way,—I could of course not press him for the interest, and, as you will see, it has never been paid; and there is now a balance of some hundred pounds additional against him. Of this I could not speak, for another reason,—we are not without the hope of inheriting something by him, and to allude to this matter would be ruinous. Keep this, then. I insist upon it. I declare to you, if you refuse, I will sell it to-morrow to the first moneylender I can find, and send you my debt in hard cash. I 've been a play-man all my life, but never a defaulter.”

There was a tone of proud indignation in the way he spoke that awed Cave to silence; for in good truth he was treating of themes of which he knew nothing whatever: and of the sort of influences which swayed gamblers, of the rules that guided and the conventionalities that bound them, he was profoundly ignorant.

“You 'll not get your money, Cave,” resumed Sewell, “till this old fellow dies; but you will be paid at last,—of that I can assure you. Indeed, if by any turn of luck I was in funds myself, I 'd like to redeem it. All I ask is, therefore, that you 'll not dispose of it, but hold it over in your own possession till the day—and I hope it may be an early one—it will be payable.”

Cave was in no humor to dispute anything. There was no condition to which he would not have acceded, so heartily ashamed and abashed was he by the position in which he found himself. What he really would have liked best, would have been to refuse the bond altogether, and say, Pay when you like, how you like, or, better still, not at all. This of course was not possible, and he accepted the terms proposed to him at once.

“It shall be all as you wish,” said he, hurriedly. “I will do everything you desire; only let me assure you that I would infinitely rather this paper remained in your keeping than in mine. I'm a careless fellow about documents,” added he, trying to put the matter on the lesser ground of a safe custody. “Well, well, say no more; you don't wish it, and that's enough.”

“I must be able to say,” said Sewell, gravely, “that I never lost over night what I had not paid the next morning; and I will even ask of you to corroborate me so far as this transaction goes. There were several of your fellows at my house last night; they saw what we played for, and that I was the loser. There will be—there always is—plenty of gossip about these things, and the first question is, 'Has he-booked up?' I'm sure it's not asking more than you are ready to do, to say that I paid my debt within twenty-four hours.”

“Certainly; most willingly. I don't know that any one has a right to question me on the matter.”

“I never said he had. I only warned you how people will talk, and how necessary it is to be prepared to stifle a scandal even before it has flared out.”

“It shall be cared for. I'll do exactly as you wish,” said Cave, who was too much flurried to know what was asked of him, and to what he was pledged.

“I'm glad this is off my mind,” said Sewell, with a long sigh of relief. “I lay awake half the night thinking of it; for there are scores of fellows who are not of your stamp, and who would be for submitting these documents to their lawyer, and asking, Heaven knows, what this affair related to. Now I tell you frankly, I 'd have given no explanations. He who gave that bond is, as I know, a consummate rascal, and has robbed me—that is, my wife—out of two-thirds of her fortune; but my hands are tied regarding him. I could n't touch him, except he should try to take my life,—a thing, by the way, he is quite capable of. Old Dillon, my wife's father, believed him to be the best and truest of men, and my wife inherited this belief, even in the face of all the injuries he had worked us. She went on saying, 'My father always said, “Trust Fossy: there's at least one man in the world that will never deceive you.'””

“What was the name you said?” asked Cave, quickly.

“Oh, only a nickname. I don't want to mention his name. I have sealed up the bond, with this superscription,—'Colonel Sewell's bond.' I did this believing you would not question me farther; but if you desire to read it over, I 'll break the envelope at once.”

“No, no; nothing of the kind. Leave it just as it is.”

“So that,” said Sewell, pursuing his former line of thought, “this man not alone defrauded me, but he sowed dissension between me and my wife. Her faith is shaken in him, I have no doubt, but she 'll not confess it. Like a genuine woman, she will persist in asserting the convictions she has long ceased to be held by, and quote this stupid letter of her father in the face of every fact.

“I ought not to have got into these things,” said Sewell, as he walked impatiently down the room. “These family bedevilments should be kept from one's friends; but the murder is out now, and you can see how I stand—and see besides, that if I am not always able to control my temper, a friend might find an excuse for me.”

Cave gave a kindly nod of assent to this, not wishing, even by a word, to increase the painful embarrassment of the scene.

“Heigh ho!” cried Sewell, throwing himself down in a chair, “there's one care off my heart, at least! I can remember a time when a night's bad luck would n't have cost me five minutes of annoyance; but nowadays I have got it so hot and so heavy from fortune, I begin not to know myself.” Then, with a sudden change of tone, he added: “When are you coming out to us again? Shall we say Tuesday?”

“We are to be inspected on Tuesday. Trafford writes me that he is coming over with General Halkett,—whom, by the way, he calls a Tartar,—and says, 'If the Sewells are within hail, say a kind word to them on my part.'”

“A good sort of fellow, Trafford,” said Sewell, carelessly.

“An excellent fellow,—no better living!”

“A very wide-awake one too,” said Sewell, with one eye closed, and a look of intense cunning.

“I never thought so. It is, to my notion, to the want of that faculty he owes every embarrassment he has ever suffered. He is unsuspecting to a fault.”

“It's not the way I read him; though, perhaps, I think as well of him as you do. I 'd say that for his years he is one of the very shrewdest young fellows I ever met.”

“You astonish me! May I ask if you know him well?”

“Our acquaintance is not of very old date, but we saw a good deal of each other at the Cape. We rode out frequently, dined, played, and conversed freely together; and the impression he made upon me was that every sharp lesson the world had given him he 'd pay back one day or other with a compound interest.”

“I hope not,—I fervently hope not!” cried Cave. “I had rather hear to-morrow that he had been duped and cheated out of half his fortune than learn he had done one act that savored of the—the—” He stopped, unable to finish, for he could not hit upon the word that might be strong enough for his meaning, and yet not imply an offence.

“Say blackleg. Is n't that what you want? There's my wife's pony chaise. I 'll get a seat back to the Nest. Goodbye, Cave. If Wednesday is open, give it to us, and tell Trafford I'd be glad to see him.”

Cave sat down as the door closed after the other, and tried to recall his thoughts to something like order. What manner of man was that who had just left him? It was evidently a very mixed nature. Was it the good or the evil that predominated? Was the unscrupulous tone he displayed the result of a spirit of tolerance, or was it the easy indifference of one who trusted nothing,—believed nothing?

Was it possible his estimate of Trafford could be correct? and could this seemingly generous and open manner cover a nature cold, calculating, and treacherous? No, no. That he felt to be totally out of the question.

He thought long and intently over the matter, but to no end; and as he arose to deposit the papers left by Sewell in his writing-desk, he felt as unsettled and undecided as when he started on the inquiry.