"I scolded her first--she was like a child expecting to be sent to bed--and then I got a statement of her debts and paid them. But I told her, at the same time, that I should never do it again. I promised to help her in little ways if the allowance I made her was insufficient; but I pointed out to her that my income wouldn't stand the drain of huge payments like these; and she cried pitifully and promised, solemnly, that she would never play for money again." "And she did?" Toni's interest in the story was her excuse. He shrugged his shoulders. "Of course. It was in her blood. Gambling in one form or another she must have. Someone told me afterwards--after the crash--that it was an almost uncanny sight to see my wife, looking like a child with her curls and her big grey eyes, sitting at the bridge table playing feverishly into the small hours of the morning; or talking to bookmakers' clerks with an evidently inborn knowledge of the ways of horse-racing. I was a fool, of course. Instead of sitting in my studio painting portraits, I ought to have gone about with her--and yet, if I had, there'd have been no money for either of us." He sighed heavily. "Well, the crash came eventually. Twice more I paid her debts and twice she swore to give up her folly. Then I was sent for to a big place in Wales, to paint some portraits--those of the three daughters of the house--and of course I had to go. I had been there a month when I got an urgent wire from my solicitors to return at once; and back to town I went, to see what mischief my little wife had been getting into." "And you found----" "I found the house in an uproar. Waiting for me was my solicitor, and with him a Jewish-looking man who was the head of a large jeweller's business in the West End. Also--in another room--were a detective and a well-known pawnbroker. Now--can you reconstruct the story they told me--between them?" She shook her head. "No, I can't imagine what it was."