“I wish,” said Ernest, “I wish that you would tell me where and how you obtained that money. I need hardly say to you, dear Charles, that it is no mean curiosity that makes me ask.” “Well, if you will have the truth of it, I won it last night at the card-table, at Lady Fitzwigram’s. There, don’t look so grave; I’ve committed no crime; the money is honestly mine.” “I cannot but look grave,” replied Fontonore. “Oh, Charles, if you had but seen what I have seen of gambling! It gave me a feeling of pain, when at Holyby, Ann’s poor boys used to play at pitch and toss, and gamble for halfpence; for I beheld in their father how such amusements might end. The love of play, which is the love of gold in one of its most fatal forms, is what first brought Lawless to guilt and ruin. It grew upon him, stronger and stronger, a habit that could not be broken, till I have known him desperately stake his last shilling, with his hungry children around him wanting bread, to gratify this miserable passion; nay, gamble away the very blanket in which his sick little one was wrapped!” “But I do not lose; I gain.” “Whoever gains, some one must lose; you either receive or inflict a loss.” “I care little about the money,” cried Charles; “it is the feeling of excitement that I enjoy.” “And it is in this very feeling that the danger lies. There need be no sin in simply playing a game. I have heard that good Mr. Searle likes his quiet whist, and no doubt he enjoys it with an easy conscience; but when it is not in the game, but in the gambling, that the pleasure is found—when the interest is excited, not by exercise of skill, but by the chance of a lucky deal—oh, Charles, is it not a kind of intoxication which the young Pilgrim especially is bound to shun?” “There is a sort of intoxication in all sorts of worldly excitement, I think,” observed Charles. “The expectation of a ball intoxicates my cousin; the chances of an election, her father; great heroes are intoxicated by a desire for conquest. What was Napoleon but a mighty gambler?” “Yes,” subjoined Ernest; “one who played for kingdoms, and gambled away crown, liberty, and all.” “Well, to me there is something great and animating in the idea of putting it ‘to the touch, to gain or lose it all.’” “If that be your feeling, Charles,” exclaimed Fontonore, “you are one who should never touch a card. There is the fuel ready in your heart. Oh, beware of letting a spark fall upon it! How can you pray not to be led into temptation, without mocking the great Being whom you address, if you, with your eyes open, seek the company and the amusements which you know in themselves to be temptation? You would be as one who, because the day was fair and the water inviting, would venture in a boat close to a dangerous whirlpool, and, while he felt the strong current drawing him in, would content himself with praying for some wind from heaven to save him from the peril into which he had thrown himself.”