Ina Klosking discerned the change, and backed the winning color, then doubled on it twice. She did this so luckily three or four times that, though her single stake was at first only forty pounds, gold seemed to grow around her, and even notes to rise and make a cushion. She, too, was excited, though not openly; her gloves were off, and her own lovely hand, the whitest in the room, placed the stakes. You might see a red spot on her cheek-bone, and a strange glint in her deep eye; but she could not do anything that was not seemly. She played calmly, boldly, on the system that had cleared out Ned Severne, and she won heavily, because she was in luck. It was her hour and her vein. By this time Zoe and Fanny were cleaned out; and looked in amazement at the Klosking, and wondered how she did it. Miss Maitland, at her last sovereign, began to lean on the victorious Klosking, and bet as she did: her pile increased. The dove caught sight of her game, and backed her luck. The creole backed her heavily. Presently there was an extraordinary run on black. Numbers were caught. The Klosking won three times, and lost three times; but the bets she won were double bets, and those she lost were single. Then came a _refait,_ and the bank swept off half her stake; but even here she was lucky. She had only forty pounds on. By-and-by came the event of the night. Black had for some time appeared to rule the roost, and thrust red off the table, and the Klosking lost two hundred pounds. The Klosking put two hundred pounds on red: it won. She doubled: red won. She doubled: there was a dead silence. The creole lady put the maximum on red, three hundred pounds: red won. Ina Klosking looked a little pale; but, driven by some unaccountable impulse, she doubled. So did the creole. Red won. The automata chucked sixteen hundred pounds to the Klosking, and six hundred pounds to the other lady. Ina bet forty pounds on black. Red won again. She put two hundred pounds on black: black won. She doubled: black won again. She doubled: black won. Doubled again: black won. The creole and others stood with her in that last run, and the money was chucked. But the settlement was followed by a short whisper, and a croupier, in a voice as mechanical as ever, chanted that the sum set apart for that table was exhausted for that day. The Klosking and her backers had broken the bank. CHAPTER IX. THERE was a buzzing, and a thronging round the victorious player. Ina rose, and, with a delicate movement of her milk-white hand, turned the mountain of gold and column of notes toward Ashmead. “Make haste, please,” she whispered; then put on her gloves deliberately, while Ashmead shoved the gold and the notes anyhow into the inner pockets of his shooting-jacket, and buttoned it well up.