"Well, hang it, you can't grumble. You've won and lost a bit in your time," his friend said, casting himself upon a couch near, stroking his dark beard, and blowing a cloud of smoke from his full lips. "If you're such an idiot as not to play any more, well you, of course, have to suffer." "Play, be hanged!" cried Brooker, impetuously. "My luck's gone. The last time I played trente-et-quarante, I lost a couple of ponies." "But the system is--" "Oh, the system is all rot. The Johnnie who invented it ought to have gone and played it himself. He'd have been a candidate for the nearest workhouse within three days." "Well, we brought it off all right more than once," Zertho observed, with a slight accent. "Mere flukes, all of them." "You won at one coup thirty-six thousand francs, I remember. Surely that wasn't bad?" "Ah! that was because Liane was sitting beside me. It's wonderful what luck that girl has." "Then why not take her back again this season?" his companion suggested. "She wouldn't go," he answered, after a slight pause. "Wouldn't go!" cried the Prince, raising his dark, well-defined brows. "You are her father. Surely she obeys you?" "Of late she's very wilful; different entirely from the child as you knew her. Since poor Nelly's death she seems to have been seized with a sudden desire to go to church on Sunday, and is getting altogether a bluestocking," the Captain said. "Poor Nelly!" sighed the Prince. "I have never ceased to think of that sad evening when she grasped my hand through the carriage-window as the train was moving, and with a merry mischievous laugh waved me farewell. She was bright and happy then, as she always was; yet an hour later she was shot dead by some villainous hand. I wonder whether the mystery will ever be explained," he added, reflectively. The Captain made no reply, but smoked on steadily, his head thrown back, gazing fixedly at the opposite wall. "The police have done their best," he answered at length. "At present, however, they have no clue." "And I don't believe they ever will have," answered Zertho, slowly. "What makes you think that?" Brooker inquired, turning and looking at him. "Well, I've read all that the papers say about the affair," he answered, "and to me the mystery seems at present one that may never be solved." "Unless the crime is brought home to the assassin by some unexpected means." "Of course, of course," he answered. "You're a confounded fool to remain down in that wretched, dismal hole, Brooker. How you can stand it after what you've been used to I really can't think."