"Mr. Todhetley, sir? He has not gone out. He is in the smoking-room with Mr. Augustus and Mr. Crayton. I've just taken up some soda-water." I went on to the smoking-room: a small den, built out on the leads of the second floor, that no one presumed to enter except Gusty and Fabian. The cards lay on the table in a heap, and the three round it were talking hotly. I could see there had been a quarrel. Some stranger had come in, and was standing with his back to the mantel-piece. They called him Temply; a friend of Crayton's. Temply was speaking as I opened the door. "It is clearly a case of obligation to go on; of honour. No good in trying to shirk it, Todhetley." "I will not go on," said Tod, as he tossed back his hair from his hot brow with a desperate hand. "If you increase the stakes without my consent, I have a right to refuse to continue playing. As to honour; I know what that is as well as any one here." They saw me then: and none of them looked too well pleased. Gusty asked me what I wanted; but he spoke quite civilly. "I came to see after you all. Richard said you were here." What they had been playing at, I don't know: whether whist, écarté, loo, or what. Tod, as usual, had been losing frightfully: I could see that. Gusty was smoking; Crayton, cool as a cucumber, drank hard at brandy-and-soda. If that man had swallowed a barrel of cognac, he would never have shown it. Temply and Crayton stared at me rudely. Perhaps they thought I minded it. "I wouldn't play again to-night, were I you," I said aloud to Tod. "No, I won't; there," he cried, giving the cards an angry push. "I am sick of the things--and tired to death. Good night to you all." Crayton swiftly put his back against the door, barring Tod's exit. "You cannot leave before the game's finished, Todhetley." "We had not begun the game," rejoined Tod. "_You_ stopped it by trebling the stakes. I tell you, Crayton, I'll not play again to-night." "Then perhaps you'll pay me your losses." "How much are they?" asked Tod, biting his lips. "To-night?--or in all, do you mean?" "Oh, let us have it all," was Tod's answer; and I saw that he had great difficulty in suppressing his passion. All of them, except Crayton, seemed tolerably heated. "You know that I have not the ready-money to pay you; you've known that all along: but it's as well to ascertain how we stand." Crayton had been coolly turning over the leaves of a note-case, adding up some figures there, below his breath. "Eighty-five before, and seven to-night makes just ninety-two. Ninety-two pounds, Todhetley." I sprang up from the chair in terror. It was as if some blast had swept over me, "Ninety-two pounds! Tod! do you owe _that_?" "I suppose I do." "_Ninety-two pounds!_ It cannot be. Why, it is close upon a hundred!" Crayton laughed at my consternation, and Temply stared. "If you'll go on playing, you may redeem some of it, Todhetley," said Crayton. "Come, sit down."