"I will not touch another card to-night," said he, doggedly. "I have said it: and I am not one to break my word: as Johnny Ludlow here can testify to. I don't know that I shall play again after to-night." Crayton was offended. Cool though he was, I think he was somewhat the worse for what he had taken--perhaps they all were. "Then you'll make arrangements for paying your debts," said he, in scornful tones. "Yes, I'll do that," answered Tod. And he got away. So did I, after a minute or two: Gusty kept me, talking. In passing upstairs, for we slept on the third floor, Mr. Pell came suddenly out of a room on the left; a candle in one hand and some papers in the other, and a look on his face as of some great trouble. "What! are you young men not in bed yet?" he exclaimed. "It is late." "We are going up now. Is anything the matter, sir?" I could not help asking. "The matter?" he repeated. "I thought you looked worried." "I am worried with work," he said, laughing slightly. "While others take their rest, I have to be up at my books and letters. Great wealth brings great care with it, Johnny Ludlow, and hard work as well. Good night, my lad." Tod was pacing the room with his hands in his pockets. It was a terrible position for him to be in. Owing a hundred pounds--to put it in round numbers--for a debt of honour. No means of his own, not daring to tell his father. I mounted on the iron rail of my little bed opposite the window, and looked at him. "Tod, what _is_ to be done?" "For two pins I'd go and enlist in some African regiment," growled he. "Once over the seas, I should be lost to the world here, and my shame with me." "Shame!" "Well, and it is shame. An ordinary debt that you can't pay is bad enough; but a debt of honour----" He stopped, and caught his breath with a sort of sob--as if there were no word strong enough to express the sense of shame. "It will never do to tell the Pater." "Tell _him_!" he exclaimed sharply. "Johnny, I'd cut off my right hand--I'd fling myself into the Thames, rather than bring such a blow on him." "Well, and so I think would I." "It would kill him as sure as we are here, Johnny. He would look upon it that I have become a confirmed gambler, and I believe the shock and grief would be such that he'd die of it. No: I have not been so particularly dutiful a son, that I should bring _that_ upon him." I balanced myself on the bed-rail. Tod paced the carpet slowly. "No, never," he repeated, as if there had not been any pause. "I would rather die myself." "But what is to be done?" "Heaven knows! I wish the Pells had been far enough before they had invited us up." "I wish you had never consented to play with the lot at all, Tod. You might have stood out from the first." "Ay. But one glides into these things unconsciously. Johnny, I begin to think Crayton is just a gambler, playing to win, and nothing better."