It is to the credit of human nature that, as a rule, men even of the lowest type feel the uselessness, the degradation, of trying to annul their past on their deathbeds. But to Swayne, who had never shone as a credit to human nature, a chance remained a chance. He was a gambler and a swindler, a man who had risked long odds, and had been made rich and poor by the drugging of a horse, or the forcing of a card. If, in his strict attention to never losing a chance, he had inadvertently mislaid his soul, he was not likely to be aware of it. But a _chance_ was a thing he had never so far failed to take advantage of. He was taking his last now. Colonel Tempest looked at him in horror. The interests of the two men clashed, and at a vital moment. "For God's sake don't pray now, Swayne," said Colonel Tempest, appealingly, as Swayne began to mutter something more. "I've come to set wrong right, and that will be a great deal better than any prayers; do you more good in the end." Swayne did not seem to understand. He looked in a perplexed manner at Colonel Tempest. "I don't appear to fetch it out right," he said. "But it's in the Prayer-book on the mantelpiece. That's what our parson reads out of. You get it, colonel; just get it quick, and pray 'em off one after another. It don't matter much which. They're all good." "Swayne," said Colonel Tempest, in utter desperation, "I'll do anything; I'll--pray as much as you like afterwards, if you will only give me up those papers you have against me--those bets." "What?" said Swayne, a gleam of the old professional interest flickering into his face. "You han't got the money?" "Yes. Here, here!" and Colonel Tempest tore the banker's note out of his pocket-book, and held it before Swayne's eyes. "I was to have had twenty-five per cent. commission," said Swayne, rallying perceptibly at the thought. "Twenty-five per cent. on each. I wouldn't let 'em go at less. Two thousand five hundred I should have made. But"--with a sudden restless relapse--"it's no use thinking of that now. Get down the book, colonel." But for once Colonel Tempest was firm. Perhaps his indignation against Swayne's egotism enabled him to be so. He made Swayne understand that business must in this instance come first, and prayers afterwards. It was a compact; not the first between the two. "The papers," he repeated over and over again, frantic at the speed with which the last links of Swayne's memory seemed falling from him. "Where are they? You have them with you, of course? Tell me where they are?" and he grasped the dying man by the shoulder. Swayne was frightened back to some semblance of effort. "I haven't got 'em," he gasped. "The--the--the chaps engaged in the business have 'em." "But you know who have got them?" "Yes, of course. It's all written down somewhere." "Where?"