When he had satisfied himself that she was not on the beach, he regained the road, and deliberately turned his steps in the direction he had taken with her that morning. The house where she was staying loomed large in the darkness; and, as he strolled up the sandy roadway, he was conscious of the scent of the oleanders, tall trees of which, in a pink and white confusion, leaned over towards the road. The air was heavy with their fragrance, and warm and still. In the stillness the murmur of the sea followed him, resembling in its muffled monotony the almost outdistanced murmuring of a large concourse of people, uttering an insistent complaint. Lights gleamed fitfully from the open windows of the house, and upon the stoep and balcony people were grouped in small parties of twos and threes, contented, after dinner groups, enjoying the restful dusk which succeeded the heat and glare of the day. If Miss Upton had been there he could not have judged; it was not light enough to distinguish clearly, and the view he got was interrupted and shadowed with the trees. When he had passed the house he turned, abruptly and retraced his footsteps, and walked back to his hotel, which he reached with a most unaccustomed feeling of weariness as a result of his long tramp. He discovered when he got back that Holman had returned. He came upon him in the vestibule, and was able to greet him with no trace of his former irritation. He had walked that mood off, or had got the better of it somehow. Holman was in excellent spirits. He wanted to talk, and suggested whisky and a smoke and a retired corner; and Matheson, infected with his bonhomie, managed to throw off the despondency that had weighed upon him all day and respond to his genial humour. Before they separated for the night, rather unexpectedly, and yet in a manner which seemed to suggest that he had deliberately led up to the subject, Holman made an allusion to the cards, and to the other's run of ill luck, which he prophesied must turn shortly. "It can't hold for ever," he asserted. "I'll play you to-morrow double or quits." "It's no good," Matheson answered. "If I lost I couldn't pay, and I'm not taking on a debt to hang like a millstone round my neck for years." "I'll tell you what I will do." Holman's hand fell warmly on the other's shoulder... "I can't clear you out without giving you a chance of winning back. If you lose you can pay me in service." "That depends," Matheson answered, and scrutinised the speaker closely, "on what the service is." "Well, of course." There was a long pause. "We will go into that to-morrow," came the slow response. CHAPTER FOUR.