“Is it strange, then, if I love you, that I should want to go with you and live with you, and be with you always, and make your joys and your burdens my joys and my burdens, and have a share and an interest in everything that comes to you? Is it strange that I should hold wealth or place or even honor as nothing against you? Is it strange that I should be miserable, thoroughly, utterly miserable with every other thing in the world, and you denied?” The woman's voice faltered and broke; her hands relaxed, and began to slip from the great arms of the chair. The man came over, and knelt down beside her and put his arms around her. “Marion, dear heart,” he said, “you do love me. You will trust me a little while,--just a little while?” The woman's head slipped down on his shoulder. “Love you!” she murmured, “I have always loved you. Surely I shall always love you. But when you are gone, the world is so empty, so miserably empty!” VI I THOROUGHLY appreciate everything I you have mentioned, Mr. Hergan,” said the clerk Parks, “but it is quite impossible. Mr. Mason is entirely inaccessible. I should not dare interrupt him.” “Look here, my friend,” responded the gambler. “I have heard this same talk every day for the last week, and it don't go any longer. I have got to see this lawyer, and I have got to see him now. Do you understand me?” “Oh, yes,” replied the clerk, with a faint smile, “I understand you perfectly, but it is entirely useless to urge the matter any farther. The business with which Mr. Mason is at present engaged is of great magnitude. He would not permit an interview at all. I am very sorry, but, of course, I can do nothing for you.” The gambler did not respond. For a few moments he was silent. Then he put his hands into the inside pocket of his coat and drew forth a rather battered leather pocket-book. He held the pocket-book under the table, opened it slowly, and selecting a fifty-dollar bill from among a number of others, laid it gently on the table. “There,” he said, “is my ante. I want in the game.” The eyes of the clerk began to contract slowly at the corners. “My dear man,” he said, “I should like to do this for you, but I don't see how I can. I don't believe Mr. Mason would even listen to me just now. I don't----” “Wait,” responded the gambler; “I sweeten it.” Thereupon he selected another bill from the pocket-book and spread it out carefully beside the other upon the table. The little bald clerk began to drum on the chair with his fingers. His eyes wandered from the money to the door of Mason's private office, and back again. Presently he turned to the gambler. The Hon. Ambercrombie Herman held up two fingers. “Don't call,” he said, “I tilt it to one hundred and fifty.” And he added another bill to the two, and pushed the money across the table to the clerk. Then he closed the pocket-book deliberately and replaced it in his coat.