"The only plan is for you, when you hand in your counters, not to ask for any money in exchange, but to say merely that you and I have arranged everything between ourselves. I shall be your debtor all the same, your understand, and I give you my word of honour to pay you as soon as I possibly can." "I do not doubt it, but you are asking me—" "It would save me! It would save me!" cried the Doctor, whose distress was now at its height. "It would save you!" replied M. de Morin. "I do not quite see that. I fear that, on the contrary, I should be doing you a very bad turn. You would continue to be a member of the Club; you would play with equal recklessness, and suffer similar losses. Your debt, already of some magnitude, would increase considerably, and the ruin, which to-day merely threatens you, would in three or four months become inevitable. No, no—in your interest, and purely out of sympathy with you, I am anxious to compel you to forsake the life you are now leading. Only think of the brilliant career that lies before you! And you have neglected, nay, almost cast it on one side altogether, simply to give yourself up, soul and body, to a passion which must ruin you." "There is yet time enough for me to set to work in earnest," replied M. Delange. "If I can only manage honourably to get out of the false position in which I am now placed, I promise solemnly to hand in my resignation as a member of the club, and never to touch a card again in my life." "Oh, yes!" replied M. de Morin. "'When the devil was sick, the devil a saint would be,' &c., &c., we know all that. But I tell you plainly that if you remain in Paris, and with your present set, you will come to grief sooner or later. You must summon up courage to expatriate yourself, and go far, far away." "But Paris is the only place where I am known, and where I have any chance of repairing my shattered fortune and getting out of your debt." "Nonsense! But there is, possibly, another door open to you. Light this cigar, and give me your undivided attention. An idea has struck me." M. Delange looked up quickly, and M. de Morin, after having taken a few vigorous whiffs at his cigar, continued his remarks as follows— "Are you of opinion that if I do you the service you wish me to do, I, in turn, have a right to ask you for something in exchange?" "Certainly, you may dispose of me as you will, I shall be entirely at your orders." "Even," replied M. de Morin, and he spoke very slowly and dwelt on each word so that his hearer might be taken as little as possible by surprise, "even supposing that it should be a question of undertaking with me this journey I am contemplating, or, in other words, of accompanying me to Africa?" The young Doctor was evidently not prepared for this proposal, and could not, in spite of the oratorical precautions of M. de Morin, repress a movement of surprise. Nevertheless, he replied at once— "I would go with you. To what part of Africa are you going?"