"Because I was a fool," he answered, "and because I believed I could pull things straight. But anyway, I was owing Dan Murchison seventy thousand I'd lost at poker. He was kind of shepherding me. He was a rough sort, Dan, and he had an ambitious wife, and I had a name he liked. Well, he was giving a week-end party down at that place of his on the Hudson. He asked me, or rather he ordered me down. I was only too glad to go. Then Mrs. Murchison chipped in--wanted my sister, wanted to put it in the paper. Katharine kicked, of course. So did I. Murchison for the first time showed his teeth--and we both went. Jocelyn Thew was another of the guests." "Tough, wasn't it?" "Hell! On the way down--I don't know why, but I was feeling pretty desperate--I told Jocelyn Thew how I stood with Murchison. He listened but he didn't say much. He never does. It was a rotten party--common people, one or two professional gamblers, a lot of florid, noisy, overdressed, giggling women. After the women were supposed to have gone to bed, we sat down to what Dan Murchison called a friendly game--a hundred dollars ante, and a thousand rise. Jocelyn Thew played, three other men, and Murchison. After about an hour of it, I'd lost over twenty thousand dollars. The others had it between them, except Jocelyn, and about his play there was a very curious thing. He put in his ante regularly when it came to him, but he never made a single bet. Murchison turned to him once. "'Say, you must be having rotten cards, Mr. Thew,' he said. "Jocelyn shook his head very deliberately. I can hear his reply even now. Kind of quiet it was and deliberate. "'I don't fancy my chances of winning at this game.' "I knew what he meant later. I didn't tumble to it at the time. We played till two o'clock. God knows how much I'd lost! Then Murchison called the game off. He locked up his winnings in a little safe let into the wall. I was standing by him, drinking, and I saw the combination. Jocelyn Thew was sitting quite by himself, as though deep in thought.--We all got up to bed somehow. I sat for some hours at the open window. Pretty soon I got sober, and I began to realise what had happened. And all the time I thought of that safe, chock full of money, and the combination ready set. I heard Katharine moving about in her room, and I knew that she was waiting for me to go and say good night. I wouldn't. I put on a short jacket instead of my dress coat, and I took an electric torch out of my dressing case and I went down-stairs. I'd made up my mind, Nora. I meant to rob that safe." She was carried away by his narrative. He had let himself go now, speaking in short, quick sentences. Yet his plain words seemed to paint with a marvellous vividness the story he told. It seemed to her that she could see it all, could realise what he went through. "Go on, Dick," she whispered. "I understand."