On a beautifully inlaid table were dice. Fulvius, after plying Torquatus with more liquor, negligently took them up, and threw them playfully down, talking in the mean time on indifferent subjects. “Dear me!” he kept exclaiming, “what throws! It is well I am not playing with any one, or I should have been ruined. You try, Torquatus.” Gambling, as we learnt before, had been the ruin of Torquatus: for a transaction arising out of it he was in prison when Sebastian converted him. As he took the dice into his hand, with no intention, as he thought, of playing, Fulvius watched him as a lynx might its prey. Torquatus’s eye flashed keenly, his lips quivered, his hand trembled. Fulvius at once recognized in all this, coupled with the poising of his hand, the knowing cast of the wrist, and the sharp eye to the value of the throw, the violence of a first temptation to resume a renounced vice. “I fear you are not a better hand than I am at this stupid occupation,” said he indifferently; “but, I dare say, Corvinus here will give you a chance, if you will stake something very low.” “It must be very low indeed,--merely for recreation; for I have renounced gambling. Once, indeed--but no matter.” “Come on,” said Corvinus, whom Fulvius had pressed to his work by a look. They began to throw for the most trifling stakes, and Torquatus generally won. Fulvius made him drink still, from time to time, and he became very talkative. “Corvinus, Corvinus,” he said at length, as if recollecting himself, “was not that the name that Cassianus mentioned?” “Who?” asked the other, surprised. “Yes, it was,” continued Torquatus to himself,--“the bully, the big brute. Were you the person,” he asked, looking up to Corvinus, “who struck that nice Christian boy Pancratius?” Corvinus was on the point of bursting into a rage; but Fulvius checked him by a gesture, and said, with timely interference: “That Cassianus whom you mentioned is an eminent school-master; pray, where does he live?” This he knew his companion wished to ascertain; and thus he quieted him. Torquatus answered: “He lives, let me see,--no, no; I won’t turn traitor. No; I am ready to be burnt, or tortured, or die for my faith; but I won’t betray any one,--that I won’t.” “Let me take your place, Corvinus,” said Fulvius, who saw Torquatus’s interest in the game deepening. He put forth sufficient skill to make his antagonist more careful and more intent. He threw down a somewhat larger stake. Torquatus, after a moment’s pause of deliberation, matched it. He won it. Fulvius seemed vexed. Torquatus threw back both sums. Fulvius seemed to hesitate, but put down an equivalent, and lost again. The play was now silent: each won and lost; but Fulvius had steadily the advantage, and he was the more collected of the two.