"Come, come," remonstrated the elder man, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Let's hear all about it. It's a rare thing that is past mending." "No mending for me. Played out, and done for at last. What you--you said--though you were a beast to say it--is true. Good for nothing--best out of the way." On this road, that was sheltered from the sharp breeze by the cliff, it was hot. A glimpse of snow-peak up a gorge far inland was refreshing, and yonder, on the left across a wooded ravine, came the blue glow of the sea from the other side by unseen Villafranca behind the hill, whence warships were steaming slowly. The elder man sat down on a rock by the road, and observed all this beauty of sunny sea and green mountain slope and far-vistaed gorge. The other saw nothing. He stood with his face turned from his companion, who observed a slight quiver in the square shoulder towards him; then the young man suddenly flung himself face downwards on the grassy bank by his side, while the bearded man lit a pipe and smoked thoughtfully for some seconds, till the faint convulsive motion of the shoulders had stopped. "What is the net amount this time?" he asked then of the recumbent figure, which turned slowly on its back and sat up, staring vacantly out into the purple sea-spaces. "It's the Spider," he said at last, "and, you see, it's been piled up gradually--heaven knows how--I hadn't a notion. He's been accommodating me from time to time with a few louis, and now he has stuck on his beastly interest--made it run into four figures, and flung it at me, yesterday. And the beast won't wait for my infernal luck to change, as of course it must before long. Threatens to ask the chief to stop it out of my pay." "And what have you to meet this with?" asked the bearded man, taking and reading the figures on the paper handed to him. The young man drew a few francs from his pocket. "These, and a longish score at the hotel, where they are beginning to dun me. Watch gone, everything, but a pair of gold sleeve-links. Two horses at home, and a few sticks in barracks, and several bills to pay. So the game's played out." "It looks dark," the Pole acknowledged, "but there may be a gleam somewhere." "I've been so unlucky," the young man sighed--"everything against me." "You've had exactly the luck you deserve in this matter, and much better than you deserve in others." "Oh, hit a man when he is down! But I shouldn't have gone to the dogs if _she'd_ have stuck to me." "What girl with any self-respect could stick to you in the company you kept?" "If you mean that poor woman--a good-hearted creature and more sinned against than sinning--what harm was there in helping her out of a tight place?"