“Hush child!” Miss Betsey rejoined, almost impatiently, as she drew herself from Bessie’s embrace and rose to her feet.  “Never again trouble your head about your debts.  I sent the two hundred and fifty pounds to my brother’s wife yesterday, and told her what I was doing to you, and what I meant to do if you passed the ordeal unscathed, and any time you choose you can write to Anthony and send him twenty pounds, or more, if you like.  What is mine is yours, so long as my opinion of you remains unchanged.  I did not like your mother; I am free to tell you that.  I was angry with your father for marrying her, and angrier still when I heard of the life she led—­heard of her at Monte Carlo, of which I never think without a shudder.”

Miss McPherson had seated herself in a chair by this time, and over her white face there came a rapt far-off look, and her hands were locked together as she continued: 

“Bessie, I may as well tell you now why I hate that place, and hate all who frequent it.  Charlie seems very near me to-night; my boy lover, with the soft brown eyes and hair, and the sweet voice which always spoke so tenderly to me, even when I was in my fitful moods.  That was more than forty years ago when he walked with me along the rose-scented lanes and told me of his love, and talked of the happy future when I would be his wife.  Alas, he little dreamed what the future had in store, or of the dreary, lonely life I should lead, while he—­oh, Charlie, my love, my love!”

She paused a moment, while she seemed trying to repress some powerful emotion, and then resumed her story: 

“When he was twenty-one, and I was twenty, we went abroad in company with some relatives of mine, and found ourselves at last at Monte Carlo.  Your grandfather was with us, and together we went into the gambling hall where men and women sell their souls for money, and there my brother played, and I—­shame that I must tell it—­I, too, tried my luck, while Charlie looked on reproachfully, and tried to get me away, but I only laughed at him, and bade him stay to keep me company.  Then I called him a coward, and badgered him until one night he put down a five-franc piece and won, and then he put down another, and another—­doubling and trebling sometimes, and always winning, as it is said Satan, who rules that den, lets the novices do.  The next day Charlie played with a recklessness which half alarmed me, and made me remonstrate with him.  But to no purpose.

“‘You called me a coward,’ he said, laughingly; ’and besides that, I rather like it, the gold comes so easily.  I have scarcely lost a pound.’

“Soon, however, the tide turned, and he began to lose; not small, but large sums.  But, as if that made him more determined than ever, he played on and on, always the first to enter and the last to leave, while I watched him with a dread foreboding at my heart which I could not define.  Oh, how rashly he played and what heavy sums he staked!  His fortune was not large, nor was mine then what it is now; but we had planned together to buy a lovely place we knew of on the Isle of Wight, and had furnished it in fancy many times.