In an evil hour Gerald Leslie and Philip Treverton had had recourse to this man, and borrowed from him, at a cruelly heavy rate of interest, the sum above mentioned. Treverton was, unlike his partner, a reckless speculator, and, unfortunately, not a little of a gamester; he therefore thought lightly enough of the circumstances. Not so Gerald Leslie. The thought of this loan oppressed him like a load of iron, and he was determined that it should be repaid at any sacrifice. He gathered together the money before leaving New Orleans to visit his daughter in England, and intrusted the sum to his partner, Treverton, with special directions that it should be paid immediately to Silas Craig. Gerald Leslie knew that his partner was a gamester, but he firmly believed him to be one of the most honorable of men, and he had ever found him strictly just in all their commercial dealings. He departed, therefore, happy in the thought that the debt was paid, and that Silas Craig, the usurer, could no longer rub his fat, greasy hands, and chuckle at the thought of his power over the haughty planter, Gerald Leslie. He departed happy in the thought that his next voyage would be to convey him to an English home, where the tyranny of prejudice could never oppress his beloved and lovely child. The first intelligence which greeted him on his return to New Orleans, was the death of his friend and partner. Philip Treverton had died a week before Gerald Leslie landed. He had died at midnight in a wretched chamber at a gambling-house. There was a mystery about his death--his last hours were shrouded in the darkness of the silent secrets of the night. None knew who had watched beside him in his dying moments. The murderer had escaped; the mutilated body of the murdered man was found in the waters of the Mississippi. Philip Treverton's death was a sad blow to his survivor, Gerald Leslie. The two men had been associates for years; both thorough gentlemen, intellectual, highly educated, they had been united in the bonds of a sincere and heartfelt friendship. What then were Gerald Leslie's feelings when he found that his friend, his partner, his associate, the man whom he had fully trusted, had deceived him; and that the money left him in Treverton's hands had never been paid to Silas Craig? In vain did he search among his friend's papers for the receipt; there was not one memorandum, not one scrap of paper containing any mention of the hundred thousand dollars; and a week after Gerald Leslie's return, he received a visit from the usurer, who came to claim his debt. The planter gave him a bill at a twelve-months' date, the heavy interest for that period fearfully increasing the debt. This bill came due on the very day on which we have introduced Gerald Leslie to the reader, and he was now every moment expecting to hear the usurer announced.