"His conduct to her was marked with such observance of the most trifling of her wishes, with the sincere courtesy which springs from the truest and purest affection, that the remembrance of Duvernet naturally faded more and more from her memory. So that the first cloud-shadow which fell upon the brightness of their life was the illness and death of old Vertua. "Since the night when he had lost all he possessed to the Chevalier, he had never touched a card. But in the closing moments of his life all his faculties seemed to be engrossed with the game. Whilst the priest, who had come to administer the consolations of the Church to him on his departure from this life, spoke to him of spiritual things, he lay with closed eyes, murmuring between his teeth, '_Perd!_--_Gagne_,' and making, with hands quivering in the spasms of death, the motions of dealing and playing out cards. Angela and the Chevalier, bending over him, called him by the tenderest names. He did not seem to hear them, or to know they were there. With a faint sigh of '_Gagne!_' he gave up the ghost. "In her deep sorrow, Angela could not help an eery shudder at the manner of his departure. The remembrance of that night, when she had first seen the Chevalier as the most hardened reprobate of a gambler, came vividly to her mind, and the thought came into her soul that he might some day throw off his angel's mask and, jeering at her in his pristine devilishness, begin his old life again. "This fearful presentiment was to come but too true. "Deeply shocked as the Chevalier was at the notion of old Francesco Vertua's having gone into the next world heedless of the consolations of the Church, and unable to leave off thinking of the former sinful life, still, somehow--he could not tell why--it brought the memory of the game back to his mind again, so that every night in his dreams he was presiding at the banque once more, heaping up fresh treasures. "Since, Angela, impressed by the remembrance how her husband had appeared to her at first, found it impossible to maintain the trustful affection of her earlier wedded days, mistrust, at the same time, came into his soul of her, and he attributed her embarrassment to that secret which at once disturbed her peace, and remained unrevealed to him. This suspicion produced in him misery and annoyance, which he expressed in utterances which pained Angela. By a natural psychical reflex action, the remembrance of the unfortunate Duvernet revived in her mind, and with it the miserable sense that the love which had blossomed forth in her young heart was lost and bidden adieu to for ever. The discord grew greater and greater, till it reached such a pitch that the Chevalier came to the conclusion that the life of retirement which he was leading was a complete mistake, and longed with all his heart to be out into the world again.