At a sign from her son, Mrs. Van Santen suddenly disappeared, and Gerard saw her no more for some time, and wondered whether she had retired to “have a good cry” over her son’s gambling propensities, and the troubles which she perhaps foresaw for him in consequence. Gerard, who was quite sure in his own mind that Cecil Jones was being robbed, and that he was aware of the fact, found himself growing more and more excited, as he waited, in a state of extreme nerve-tension, for the crisis which he felt must be approaching. The sounds of voices, of movements, became dull and confused in his mind; the figures of the players became blurred, and a sort of singing in his ears warned him that he had better find relief to his intense excitement in the open air, when suddenly, just as he was turning to go towards the French window of the middle room, there was a sound like the hissing of a serpent, followed immediately by the overthrow of half a dozen chairs, and turning, he saw that, as he had foreseen, the crisis had come. Cecil Jones, leaning across the card-table, had seized Denver’s arm, and dragged out from the sleeve of the American a card, which he flung down, face upwards, upon the table. Leaning across the table, and looking up steadily into the face of the baffled Denver, who had sprung up from his chair, and was standing, still in the grip of Jones, pale with rage and discomfiture, Jones said, in a quiet voice that carried clearly to every corner of the room and into that beyond-- “I thought so. You are a card-sharper!” In an instant there was an uproar in the room. The men who had been playing at the same table with Denver and Jones were on their feet already, exclaiming, protesting, uttering indignant exclamations. There was now a rush from the other tables, and Harry Van Santen led the crowd that gathered round the detected cheat. Harry, with a very white face, uttered a harsh laugh which was meant to be reassuring, but which was hollow, hideous, unreal, and horrible to hear. “What’s this?” he cried. “It’s a trick, a silly trick that some of you have played upon my brother! Who is it? You, Jones? Come, speak up and own to it like a man.” Hard as was his forced laughter, the manner of the older American was so assured, his voice was so deep and so confident, that one or two of the men present seemed at first inclined to believe that the version of the affair which he was trying to maintain was the true one. But Cecil Jones suddenly sprang up from his sprawling attitude, and stood erect. “Gentlemen,” he said, addressing, conspicuously, not the two Americans, but the rest of the company, “there has been systematic cheating carried on here, as some of you might have guessed, I should think. Don’t be alarmed. There is nothing to be feared except by the men who have robbed you.” The uproar of voices, excited, indignant, which had ceased when he began to speak, rose again when he left off.