"Ay, the secret has been well kept; and it was a secret that was only to have been known to me when the hand of Death was on my lips to seal them to eternal silence. But the ways of Providence are inscrutable. The day arrived upon which our debt to this man became due. At twelve o'clock on that day I called, delivered to him the sum of one hundred thousand dollars in bills of exchange, and received his written acknowledgment of the money. This done I left as light as a feather. A load was removed from my mind, and I determined to spend a day of enjoyment. I dined with some friends at an hotel, and after sitting late over the table, and drinking a good deal of wine, we adjourned to the gambling-house in Columbia Street." There was a brief pause; but Silas Craig never stirred from his abject attitude, never attempted by either word or gesture, to contradict the speaker. "We played for some hours, but my friends were not such inveterate gamesters as myself, and they grew weary of the demoniac fever. After persuading me to quit the place with them, they at last lost patience with my folly and departed, leaving me still at the fatal green cloth. It was by this time four o'clock in the morning. I had drunk a great deal, and I had been losing money. My head was bewildered; my brain dizzy, and my temper soured by my losses. The room was almost deserted, but I still sat with my eyes fixed upon the game, madly endeavoring to retrieve my losses. At this crisis a great brawny fellow opposite to me, a Frenchman, ventured to insult me. Tipsy as I was, I was in no humor to brook this. I sprung toward him to chastise his insolence, and a fight ensued, in which I was getting the worst of it, when one of the bystanders interfered, and suggested that we should resort to small swords, and finish the business in a more gentlemanly manner." "It was a plot!" said Gerald Leslie.