Thus Yootha, always generously disposed, also impressionable and ready to forgive an injury, fancied or otherwise, was soon talked over by the clever woman. Indeed, the girl went so far as to persuade herself that she and Cora and Preston, and the others who had tried so hard to discover Jessica’s antecedents, had suspected her unjustly. And now on the top of it all had come Jessica’s introduction of Yootha to the Casino with its _petits chevaux_, Yootha’s subsequent elation at her success, and Jessica’s extraction of the promise from her that she would play again with her next day. “Though I have been lucky all along, I have never been as lucky as I was to-night,” she said to Yootha as they parted for the night. “I believe you are my mascot, and to-morrow we will prove if you are or not!” Next night Preston excused himself. He said the Casino bored him; in reality he could not bear Jessica’s company, or the sight of Yootha gambling. To have opposed Yootha’s wish further than he had done would, he knew, have been unwise; she might have turned upon him and said things she would afterwards have regretted saying. So with a major in the Gunners, whose acquaintance he had made at the Royal Hotel, and who had been through the war, he started off for an evening walk up the hill to the back of the town as soon as Jessica and Yootha had gone across to the Casino, where they were to meet Stapleton and La Planta. It was one of those warm, balmy nights, the air perfectly still, which we enjoy so rarely in this country. By the time Preston and his companions had reached the summit of the steep ascent the moon, in its second quarter, was shining down across the streets and houses, imparting to the city the aspect of a toy town, and illuminating the sea for many a mile beyond it. As they sat contemplating the picturesque panorama their gaze became focused on the lights of the Casino. “Don’t you play at all?” the major, whose name was Guysburg, inquired as he lit a fresh cigar and offered one to Preston. “Not now,” Preston answered dryly. “I played too much in my time; games of chance and backing horses bit me hard when I was almost a boy.” The major laughed. “Boys will be boys,” he said lightly, as he puffed at his cigar. “And fools will be fools,” Preston retorted. “I was one of the fools who ‘made their prayer,’ and have regretted it ever since.” “Yet you have no objection to your future wife’s playing? That seems to me strange.”