When the pudding had been served and partaken of by Asshlin, Clodagh at last pushed back her chair, and with a curiously unstrung movement walked across the room to the fireplace. "Larry," she said suddenly, "will you play cards with me when Burke takes the things away?" Asshlin looked up with interest. "By Jove!" he said, "what a good idea!" When Burke reappeared, solemnly carrying some cheese, Clodagh turned to him quickly. "Is there a pack of cards in the house, Tim?" she asked. He glanced at her white face and upright figure, but his expression betrayed nothing. "I do be thinkin' there's a deck some place, if I could lay me mind on it." Asshlin leant across the table. "There's a pack in the drawer of the side-board." Burke crossed the room, but not over-eagerly; and, opening the drawer, produced the cards. "'Tis the deck poor Misther Dinis got from Cork the self-same day----" he began. Then he stopped considerately; and added under his breath, "The Almighty God be good to us all!" Clodagh took the cards from him, and stood very still, fingering them nervously. At any other time, the thought of playing with cards that belonged to the dead would have filled her with repugnance; but to-night all ordinary standards had been lost--all the world was chaos. She was like one who is slipping down into a bottomless abyss, and stretches desperate hands towards any straw that might offer respite. She never changed her position while the table was being cleared; her only sign of emotion still being shown by the spasmodic way in which she passed the cards between her fingers. When at last the cloth had been removed and the candles replaced, she came quickly across the room and stood looking down upon her cousin. She still mechanically shuffled the cards; but her glance, as it rested on Asshlin, was unconscious and absorbed, seeing only its own mental pictures. "What shall we play, Larry? What game can two people play?" Asshlin looked up. "Piquet," he said, "or euchre." She nodded. "Euchre! Yes, euchre!" She drew a chair up to the table and sat down. "What stakes?" Asshlin looked uncertain. "You say!" he suggested a little diffidently. She gave a nervous start, as a fresh gale shook the windows. "Thirty shillings a game? Twenty shillings a game?" For an instant he looked at her amazed; but seeing the unconsciousness of her expression, his breeding forbade him to offer any objection. With a reckless excitement he had never before had opportunity to feel, he leant back in his chair, and taking up the glass Burke had set beside him, poured out some port and drank it. "Thirty shillings a game!" he said magnificently. Clodagh did not seem to hear; certainly she saw nothing of his scruple and his yielding. Her own thoughts rode and spurred her, pressing her forward in a wild, panic-stricken search for oblivion.