apart—that night at all events. Then many things must be done, but quietly, and with due forethought. Above all, no fresh fuel must be added to the vindictive fires now smouldering in her lover’s speaking eyes. So Claire decided to keep to herself her own opinion of Captain Blaydes.
She had noticed without comment the heavy stick lying in the grass; she turned faint at the thought of her fiery Tom encountering the Captain so armed and so aggrieved. But she insisted on his telling her of his wrong; at first he refused.
“Very well,” he said at last, “I’ll tell you, so that you may see how I have been cheated; then I think you won’t refuse to help me lay hands upon the cheat. It’s a long story, but I’ll cut it as short as I can. He had rooked me down to the last five-pound note. With that I had a little luck. I had won back five-and-thirty before we stopped playing, and Blaydes had lost more to the others than to me. He paid them in ready money. He said they were only acquaintances—his confederates!—while I was his friend. So we went back to our lodgings, and he wrote me a cheque for thirty-five pounds, with which I could have gone out to India after all, quite as comfortably as I deserved. But in the morning he had bad news, and had to go into the country, and he begged me not to cash the cheque till the end of the month; he was hard up himself. And I was loyal to the blackguard; and I needn’t tell you what happened when time was up. His cheque was a dummy; he had never had a penny in the bank it was drawn on! So I wrote to his club again and again, and used to go there and watch for him, till the porters had me moved on by the police. The month was last October. I have heard
