He took out Connie's offering and stared at it with lack-lustre eyes. With heedful manipulation here was the fuel to feed the fire of his besetting passion for some hours. Having permitted her to give and himself to take it, why should he quibble at the manner of its spending? When he saw that hesitancy implied another attempt to turn back at the eleventh hour, he felt that this was no longer possible. Try as he might, the shame of this last infamous thing would reach out and drag him back into the mire. The alternative disposed of, the matter simplified itself. He had only to determine whether he should end it all before or after he had flung away this bit of yellow metal. The decision was so nicely balanced that he let it turn upon the flipping of the coin--heads for a sudden plunge into the pond, tails for a final bout with chance and the plunge afterward. He spun the gold piece, and went down on his hands and knees to read the oracle in the fading light. It was the misshapen eagle that stared back at him from the face of the coin, and he took his reprieve sullenly, calling his evil genius a usurer. He got upon his feet stiffly and turned his face toward the city. Then it occurred to him that it would be well to make his preparations while he could see. There was a house building on the little knoll above the pond; a brick and the binding-string from a bundle of lath would serve; and when he had secured them he sounded the pond around the edges with a stick. It was too shallow; but from a plank thrown across to the head of the drainage flume it proved deep enough, and here he left the brick and the bit of tarred twine. Half an hour later he entered the Bijou. On the threshold he met the proprietor; and when he would have passed with a nod, Grim barred the way. "Been layin' for you," announced the man of vice, sententiously. "Come into the box-office." Jeffard obeyed mechanically. He was in the semi-stupor which anticipates the delirium of the gaming fever, and the man's voice sounded afar off. Grim led the way behind the bar to a windowless den furnished with a roll-top desk and two chairs. Closing the door, he waved Jeffard to a seat. "Been sort o' sizin' you up lately, and I put it up that you're out o' luck. Does that call the turn?" "I don't know how that concerns you," said Jeffard, with a sudden access of dull resentment. "No more do I; but that's neither here nor yonder. You're down on your luck, ain't you?" Jeffard nodded. "Call it that, if you like." "Thought so. Broke most of the time, I reckon?" "Yes; most of the time." "Jes' so. Well, I'm goin' to put you on to a soft snap. I know all about you--who you are, where you come from, and all the rest. You've been playin' to lose right along, and now I'm goin' to give you a tip so you can play to win ever' time. See?" Jeffard came out of his abstraction sufficiently to wonder what the man was driving at. "Make it short," he rejoined curtly.