He had been out very late the night before, and had played heavily, but not with his usual skill. He had kept muttering grim oaths against his luck, and drinking deeper and deeper till a friend had half forced him away. And now, much shaken by the night's debauch, depressed by his heavy losses, conscience, that crouches like a tiger in every bad man's soul, and waits to rush from its lair and rend, in the long hours--the long _eternity_ of weakness and memory--already had its fangs in his guilty heart. Long and bitterly he thought, with a frown resting like night on his heavy brow. The servant brought him a dainty breakfast, but he sullenly motioned it away. He had wronged his digestive powers so greatly the night before that even brandy was repugnant to him, and he leaned heavily and wearily back in his chair, a prey to remorse. He was in just the right physical condition to take a contagious disease. There was a knock at the door, and the servant entered, bringing him a letter, saying, "This was just left here for ye, sir." "A dun," thought he, languidly, and he laid it unopened on the stand beside him. It was; and from one whom he owed a reparation he could never make, though he paid with his life. With his eyes closed, he still leaned back in a dull, painful lethargy. A faint, disagreeable odor gradually pervaded the room, and at last attracted his attention. The luxurious sybarite could not help the stings of conscience, the odor he might. He grew restless, and looked around. Zell's letter caught his attention. "Might as well see who it's from," he muttered. Weakness, pain, and emotion had so changed Zell's familiar hand, that he did not recognize it. But, as he opened and read, his eyes dilated with horror. It seemed like a dead hand grasping him out of the darkness. But a dreadful fascination compelled him to read every line, and re-read them, till they seemed burned into his memory. At last, by a desperate effort, he broke the strong spell her words had placed upon him, and, starting up, exclaimed: "Go to her, in that pest-house! I would see her dead a thousand times first. I hope she is dead, for she is the torment of my life. What is it that smells so queer?" His eyes again rested on the letter. A suspicion crossed his mind. He carried the letter to his nose, and then started violently, uttering awful oaths. "She has sent the contagion directly to me," he groaned, and he threw poor Zell's appeal on the grate. It burned with a faint, sickly odor. Then, as the day was raw and windy, a sudden gust down the chimney blew it all out into the room, and scattered it in ashes, like Zell's hopes, around his feet.