Once safe in the seclusion of Claude’s sitting-room Mensmore almost collapsed. The strain had been a severe one, and now he had to pay the penalty by way of reaction.

The barrister forced him to swallow a stiff brandy and soda, and then wished him to retire to rest, but the other protested with some show of animation.

“Let me talk, for goodness’ sake!” he cried. “I cannot be alone. You have seen me through a lot of trouble to-night. Stick to me for another hour, there’s a good fellow.”

“With pleasure. Perhaps it is the best thing you can do, after all. Let us see how much you have won.”

Bruce made a calculation on a sheet of paper and said: “Exclusive of the original stake of ten louis you ought to have £3,128.”

Mensmore pulled out of his pocket the crumpled bundle of notes and bills. Claude’s notes were among them, and he tossed them across the table with a smile.

“There’s your capital. I will see if the total is all right before we go shares.”

Claude nodded, and Mensmore began to jot down the items of his valuable package. He bothered with the figures for some time but could not get them right. Finally he tossed everything over to the other, saying:

“No matter how I count, I can’t get this calculation straight. Seventeen coups, beginning with ten louis, work out at £3,128 all right enough. But in this lot there is £3,368, and they don’t pay twice at the Casino.”

The barrister thought for a moment, and then laughed heartily. “I remember now,” he said; “I kept careful count of the series of seventeen, or eighteen, to be exact. On my own account, as you were too dazed to notice anything, I put a maximum on the black. Your dream turned up trumps, as the series stopped and black won. Hence the odd £240.”

“Then that is yours,” said the other gravely. “I will take £1,128 to square all my debts, and we go shares in the balance, a thousand each, if you think that fair. If not I will gladly hand over the lot, after paying my debts, I mean.”

Mensmore’s seriousness impressed the barrister more than any other incident of that dramatic evening.

“You forget,” he replied, “that I told you I had money in plenty for my own needs. You must keep every farthing except my own £8, which you do not now need. No. Please do not argue. I will consent to no other course. This turn of Fortune’s wheel should provide you with sufficient capital to branch out earnestly in your career, whatever it be. I will ask my interest in different manner.”

“I can never repay you, in gratitude, at any rate. And there is another who will be thankful to you when she knows. Ask anything you like. Make any stipulation you please. I agree to it.”

“It is a bargain. Sign this.”

Bruce took a sheet of notepaper, bearing the crest of the Hotel du Cercle, dated it, and wrote:

When Mensmore read the document his face fell a little. “Won’t you except pigeon-shooting?” he said. “I am sure to beat that Russian next time.”

“I can allow no exceptions.”

“But why limit me for twelve months?”

“Because if in that time you do not gain sense enough to stop risking your happiness, even your life, upon the turn of a card or the flight of a bird, the sooner thereafter you shoot yourself the less trouble you will bring upon those connected with you.”

“You are a rum chap,” murmured Mensmore, “and you put matters pretty straight, too. However, here goes. You don’t bar me from entering for sweepstakes.”

He signed the paper, and tossed it over to Bruce, while the latter did not comment upon the limitation of his intentions imposed by Mensmore’s final sentence. The man undoubtedly was a good shot, and during his residence in the Riviera he might pick up some valuable prizes.

“And now,” said the barrister, “may I ask as a friend to what use you intend to put your newly found wealth?”

“Oh, that is simple enough. I have to pay £500 which I lost in bets over that beastly unlucky match. Then I have a splendid ‘spec,’ into which I will now be able to place about £2,000—a thing which I have good reason to believe will bring me in at least ten thou’ within the year, and there is nearly a thousand pounds to go on with. And all thanks to you.”

“Never mind thanking me. I am only too glad to have taken such a part in the affair. I will not forget this night as long as I live.”

“Nor I. Just think of it. I might be lying in the gardens now, or in some mortuary, with half my head blown off.”

“Tell me,” said Bruce, between the contemplative puffs of a cigar, “what induced you to think of suicide?”

“It was a combination of circumstances,” replied the other. “You must understand that I was somewhat worried about financial and family matters when I came to Monte Carlo. It was not to gamble, in a sense, that I remained here. I have loafed about the world a good deal, but I may honestly say I never made a fool of myself at cards or backing horses. At most kinds of sport I am fairly proficient, and in pigeon-shooting, which goes on here extensively, I am undoubtedly an expert. For instance, all this season I have kept myself in funds simply by means of these competitions.”

His hearer nodded approvingly.

“Well, in the midst of my minor troubles, I must needs go and fall over head and ears in love—a regular bad case. She is the first woman I ever spoke two civil words to. We met at a picnic along the Corniche Road, and she sat upon me so severely that I commenced to defend myself by showing that I was not such a surly brute as I looked. By Jove, in a week we were engaged.”

The barrister indulged in a judicial frown.

“No. It’s none of your silly, sentimental affairs in which people part and meet months afterwards with polite inquiries after each other’s health. I am not made that way; neither is Phil—Phyllis is her name, you know. This is for life. I am just bound up in her, and she would go through fire and water for me. But she is rich, the only daughter of a Midland iron-master with tons of money. Her people are awfully nice, and I think they approve of me, though they have no idea that Phil and I are engaged.”

He paused to gulp down a strong decoction of brandy and soda. The difficult part of his story was coming.

“You can quite believe,” he continued, “that I did not want to ask her father, Sir William Browne—he was knighted by the late Queen for his distinguished municipal services—to give his daughter to a chap who hadn’t a cent. He supposes I am fairly well off, living as I do, and I can’t bear acting under false pretences. I hate it like poison, though in this world a man often has to do what he doesn’t like. However, this time I determined to be straight and above board. It was a very odd fact, but I just wanted £3000 to enable me to make a move which, I tell you, ought to result in a very fair sum of money, sufficient, at any rate, to render it a reasonable proposition for Phil and me to get married.”

Claude was an appreciative listener. These love stories of real life are often so much more dramatic than the fictions of the novel or the stage.

“The opportunity came, to my mind, in this big tournament. I had no difficulty of getting odds in six or seven to one to far more than I was able to pay if I lost. Phil came into the scheme with me—she knows all about me, you know—and we both regarded it as a certainty. Then the collapse came. She wanted to get the money from her mother to enable me to pay up, but I would not hear of it. I pretended that I could raise the wind some other way. The fact is I was wild with myself and with my luck generally. Then there was the disgrace of failing to settle on Monday, combined with the general excitement of that dream and a fearfully disturbed night. To make a long story short, I thought the best thing to do was to try a final plunge, and if it failed, to quit. I even took steps to make Phil believe I was a bad lot, so that she might not fret too much after me.”

Mensmore’s voice was a little unsteady in this last sentence. The barrister tried to cheer him by a little bit of raillery:

“I hope you have not succeeded too well?” he laughed.

“Oh, it is all right now. I mean that I left her some papers which would bring things to her knowledge that, unexplained by me, would give any one a completely false impression.”

The subject was evidently a painful one, so Bruce did not pursue it.

“About this speculation of yours,” he said. “Are you sure it’s all right, and that you will not lose your money?”

“It is as certain as any business can be. It is a matter I thoroughly understand, but I will tell you all about it. If you will pardon me a moment I will bring you the papers, as I should like to have your advice, and it is early yet. You don’t want to go to bed, I suppose?”

“Not for hours.”

Mensmore rose, but before he reached the door a gentle tap heralded the appearance of the hall-porter.

“There is a letter for the gentleman. Monsieur is not in his room. He is reported to be here, so I bring it.”

Mensmore took the note, read it with a smile and a growing flush, and handed it to the barrister, saying: “Under the circumstances I think you ought to see this. Isn’t she a brick?”

The tiny missive ran:

Claude returned the note.

“Luck! you’re the luckiest fellow in the South of France!” he said. “Why, here’s the mother plotting with the daughter on your behalf. Sir William hasn’t the ghost of a chance. Off you go to that blessed verandah.”

When Mensmore had quitted the hotel Bruce descended to the bureau to take up the threads of his neglected quest. The letter to Sydney H. Corbett was still unclaimed, and he thought he was justified in examining it. On the reverse of the envelope was the embossed stamp of an electric-lighting company, so the contents were nothing more important than a bill.

An hour later Mensmore joined him in the billiard-room, radiant and excited.

“Great news,” he said. “I squared everything with Lady Browne. Told her I was only chaffing Phil about the five hundred, because she spoiled my aim by shrieking out. Sir William has chartered a steam yacht to go for a three weeks’ cruise along the Gulf of Genoa and the Italian coast. They have put him up to ask me in the morning to join the party. Great Scott! what a night I’m having!”

They parted soon afterwards, and next morning Bruce was informed that his friend had gone out early, leaving word that he had been summoned to breakfast at the Grand Hotel, where Sir William Browne was staying.

During the afternoon Mensmore came to him like a whirlwind. “We’re off to-day,” he said. “By the way, where shall I find you in London?”

The barrister gave him his address, and Mensmore, handing him a card, said, “My permanent address is given here, the Orleans Club, St. James’s. But I will look you up first. I shall be in town early in March. And you?”

“Oh, I shall be home much sooner. Good-bye, and don’t let your good luck spoil you.”

“No fear! Wait until you know Phyllis. She would keep any fellow all right once he got his chance, as I have done. Good-bye, and—and—God bless you!”

During the next three days Bruce devoted himself sedulously to the search for Corbett. He inquired in every possible and impossible place, but the man had utterly vanished.

Nor did he come to claim his letter at the Hotel du Cercle. It remained stuck on the baize-covered board until it was covered with dust, and the clerk of the bureau had grown weary of watching people who scrutinized the receptacle for their correspondence.

Others came and asked for Corbett—sharp-featured men with imperials and long moustaches—the interest taken in the man was great, but unrequited. He never appeared.

At last the season ended, the hotel was closed, and the mysterious letter was shot into the dustbin.

CHAPTER XI