Without a word Ahlberg reached down, and from some unknown depths produced the card. He was no coward, but he was overmastered physically and mentally. He knew in an instant that Pembroke had seen it all, and there was no shadow of escape for him. Pembroke let go of Ahlberg’s collar, and, taking out a white handkerchief, wiped his hands carefully. Ahlberg had sunk back, panting, in a chair. The grip of a hand like Pembroke’s in the neighborhood of the wind-pipe is calculated to shorten the breath. Hibbs looked dazed, from one to the other, and then to the floor, where the cards had fallen. The one damning card lay on the table. “I saw it twice before this, in the glass,” said Pembroke to Hibbs. “Each time I tried to catch him, but he did it so well I couldn’t. But the last time it was perfectly plain,--you see. I could see under the table in the glass. You had better pick up your money, Hibbs.” At this, Ahlberg spoke up. “All of it is Monsieur Hibbs’,” he said with elaborate politeness, recovering his breath a little, “except two fifty-dollar notes, which are mine.” Pembroke picked out the two fifty-dollar notes and dashed them in Ahlberg’s face, who very cleverly caught them and put them in his pocket. “Mr. Pembroke,” said Hibbs, stammering and blushing, “I--I--hope you won’t say anything about this, sir. It would ruin me--I don’t mean in the canvass, for I tell you truly, sir, I hope you’ll be elected, and if it wasn’t for the party, I’d give up the fight now. But my mother, sir, don’t approve--don’t approve of playing for money--and--” “You are perfectly safe,” answered Pembroke, “and quite right in your idea of duty to your party, and your dislike to wound your mother is creditable. But as for this dog, he must leave this county at once.” Ahlberg said not a word. He did not lack mere physical courage, but cheating at cards was, to him, the most heinous offense of which he could be convicted. He had been caught--it was the fortune of war--there was nothing to be said or done. At least, it happened in this out-of-the-way corner of the world, where it could never be known to anybody--for he did not count his acquaintances in the country as anybody, unless--perhaps--Madame Koller. At that he grew pale for the first time. He really wanted Madame Koller’s money. But, in fact, he was somewhat dazed by Pembroke’s way of settling the trouble. It really shocked his ethics to see one gentleman punish another as if he were a bargeman or a coal heaver. These extraordinary Anglo-Saxons! But one thing was plain with him--if he did not remain perfectly quiescent Pembroke was quite capable of throwing him bodily out of the window--and if he had lost his honor, as he called it, there was no reason why he shouldn’t save his bones.