RUIN.
In one of the low gambling houses, in Leicester-square, Cecil sat, as
in a dream, risking the fruits of his crime. His brain whirled
round, and his heart beat every time the door opened, for he could
not drive away the fear that his forgery had been detected, and that
they were coming to arrest him.
He had dishonoured himself to play this new game which Frank had
explained to him, and now that the crime was committed he could not
profit by it!
Such a game required, above all others, consummate coolness, and
self-mastery; Cecil was more agitated, his brain was more confused
than ever it had been, and he played utterly at random. It would be
difficult to conceive greater torture than that which he endured, for
he won without satisfaction, and lost with agony; his brain was not
so confused but that he had a distinct perception of his situation,
and of the necessity for playing every _coup_ as if for life; but at
the same time his brain was so drugged with horror and despair, that
his will seemed paralyzed, and he was forced, as by an unseen hand,
into the ruin which he saw yawning before him.
While the cards were dealt with mechanical precision by the impassive
dealer, and Cecil's crime-furnished gold was passing away before his
eyes, visions of his happy youth, of his early days of marriage, and
healthy activity, floated before his mind; and he, the gambler, on
the edge of that dark gulph which gaped before him, turned back his
thoughts to those sunny days when his soul was stainless, and his
life was full of love and hope, of activity and happiness; it was
like a small wild flower on a mass of loosening rock, which the next
gust of wind will quite unloosen, and tumble thundering into the
ravine.
He thought of his mother, and of her dying injunctions, and her words
of blessing fell upon his ear, just as the dealer in his passionless
voice proclaimed,--
"Black wins."
And a heap of gold was swept away before him.
For hours did this tortured gamester play, becoming gradually inured
to the pain he suffered, and deadened to the whispers of his
conscience.
It was now eleven o'clock. The room was full of players. A
succession of new faces replaced those who one by one fell off,
contented with their winnings, or, and this was by far the most
frequent case, desperate from their losses. But Cecil never moved.
He called for wine occasionally, but nothing interrupted his play.
His last three sovereigns were staked upon the black: his life was on
the hazard of that one deal. Even the old players, accustomed to
every species of intense emotion, could not keep their eyes off
Cecil, as with parted lips, straining eyes, and purple face, he
watched the rapid progress of the game. Intensely they felt the
moment was supreme.
He lost!
With a burst of uncontrollable despair, he snatched the rake from the
hand of the croupier, who had just swept away his money, and with
both hands snapped it in two; a murmur followed this act of violence,
which only seemed preparatory to something worse; but he glared round
upon the players with such a look of mad fury that they were
awe-stricken.
Instead of any further violence, however, he broke out into a wild
hysterical laugh, which made their blood run cold, and staggered out
of the house.
In that moment which had preceded his wild laugh, a vision of his
young wife and child destitute,--starving,--thinned with want and
sickness, had appeared to him, and, as in a flash, revealed to him
the hideous extent of his ruin.
Beggared, dishonoured, stained with a profitless crime, nought
remained for him but death; and in death he resolved to still the
throbbing of his agony.
As he stumbled into Leicester Square, he ran up against one of those
unfortunate women, who, flaunting in satin and faded frippery, make
the streets hideous after sunset.
"Now then, my dear, are you going to rush into my arms without an
invitation?
'Was ever woman in this humour wooed?
Was ever woman in this humour won?'"
The fumes of bad wine poisoned the breath of the speaker, but the
tones struck so strangely upon Cecil's ears, that they arrested him
even on the path of death.
He seized her by the wrist, and dragged her under a lamp-post. As
the light fell upon both their faces, and he recognised in the
wretched woman arrayed in the garb of shame, the Hester Mason whom he
had known so prosperous and ambitious--and, as she recognised in the
emaciated haggard wreck before her, the only man she had ever loved,
he gasped with inexpressible emotion, she wept with intense shame.
Not a word passed between them. With a suffocating sense of bitter
humiliation, she wrested herself from his grasp, and darted down
Cranbourne Alley. He put his hand to his brow, as if to repress its
throbbing, and slowly walked on.