It really appeared to be so, and we all rejoiced. During a couple of hours' play Sydney had won from Mr. Pelham between six and seven thousand pounds. Both men were playing with coolness and judgment, but even when Mr. Pelham was the setter, good luck remained with Sydney. For a great part of these two hours Grace remained by the side of the players, and when she moved away Sydney called her back, saying that she gave him luck. By midnight Sydney had won back over fifteen thousand pounds, and then an adjournment for supper was called. All but Sydney and Mr. Pelham responded to the invitation; they were too deeply interested in their duel to rise from their table, and thus it happened that they were left for a time with no witness but Adolph, who said he could not eat. When we returned from the supper table they had changed their game. They were playing now with three dice, the highest throw for varying sums, from a hundred to a thousand pounds. Sydney's good luck appeared to have deserted him; he was now losing heavily. He cried out to us not to crowd round the table. "Do you think we are playing for life and death?" he exclaimed, with a wild laugh. "Come, Mr. Pelham, two thousand on this throw!" With glittering eyes and teeth firmly set, Mr. Pelham assented, and won. "Five thousand!" cried Sydney, and threw fourteen. "Ten to one in hundreds you do not beat it." "Done!" said Mr. Pelham, and threw sixteen. "You must be most unfortunate in your love affairs, Mr. Pelham," said Sydney. "How do we stand now?" Mr. Pelham passed over to his opponent a sheet of paper with figures on it. "Twenty-four thousand," cried Sydney. "Enough to set up a house in Belgravia. I am weary of this work. One throw for the last--double or quits. Your last chance, and mine. Done?" "Done!" said Mr. Pelham, with white lips. Every man in the room suspended his game, and rose to witness this mad play. "I protest!" said Sydney, turning almost savagely upon his friends. "Go to your tables, and concern yourself with your own counters. We can settle our affair without witnesses. Grace, a glass of champagne." He drank three glasses in succession, and said to Mr. Pelham, with only myself and Adolph standing by the small table, "This is a moment to remember. Fortune! be kind! I throw first. Fifteen! I am a free man. Now, Mr. Pelham." "Sixteen!" said Mr. Pelham, raising his box. The word had no sooner passed his lips than his wrist was seized with a grasp of iron by Sydney, and taking up this unrehearsed cue, I pinned the cheat to his chair. He uttered a cry of rage, but he could neither rise nor release his wrist from Sydney's hold. This incident brought all the players to their feet.