Colonel Piercey was not a man to interfere with a business that was not his. He saw that the attendants knew what they were about, and left them without another word. Sir Giles was fuming a little over the interruption to his game. “What’s the matter?” he said, testily. “You shouldn’t go and leave a game unfinished for some commotion among the women. You don’t know ’em as well as I do. Come along, come along; you’ve almost made me forget my last move. What did Meg Osborne cry out for, eh? My old lady is sharp on her sometimes. She must have given her a stinger that time; but Meg isn’t the girl to cry out.” “It was a---- stumble, I think,” said the Colonel. “Ay, ay! something of that kind. I know ’em, Gerald. I’m not easily put out. Come along and finish the game.” Margaret came in, some time after, looking very pale. She went behind her uncle’s chair, and put her hand on his shoulder, “May I wheel you to your room, Uncle, if your game’s over, instead of Dunning? He asked me to tell you he was coming directly, and that it was time for you to go to bed.” “Confound Dunning,” cried Sir Giles, in his big rumbling voice. “I’m game to go on as long as Frank here will play. I’ve not had such a night for ever so long. He’s a good player, but not good enough to beat me,” he said, with a muffled long odd laugh that reverberated in repeated rolls like thunder. The Colonel looked up at her to get his instructions. He did not like her, and yet he recognised in her the authority of the moment. And Margaret no longer tried to conciliate him, as at first, but issued forth her orders with a kind of sternness. “Let me wheel your chair, sir,” he said; “you’ll give me my revenge to-morrow? Three games out of four!--is that what you call entertaining a stranger, to beat him all along the line the first night?” Sir Giles laughed loud and long in those rumbling, long-drawn peals. His laugh was like the red ribbons, and pointed the sudden tragedy. “You shall have your revenge,” he said; “and plenty of it--plenty of it! You shall cry off before I will. I love a good game. If it wasn’t for a good game, now and then, I don’t know what would become of me. As for Meg, she’s not worth naming; and my boy, Gervase, did his best, poor chap; but between you and me, Gerald, whatever my lady says, my boy Gervase--poor chap, poor chap!” Here the old gentleman’s laughter broke down as usual in the weakness of a sudden sob or two. “He’s not what I should like to see him, my poor boy Gervase,” he cried.