As though the complaint had travelled across the dividing space and reached her ears, the girl started to walk, still throwing the stick when it was brought to her, but no longer remaining stationary to pursue this seemingly unending game. She disappeared with the dog round the curve; and fitfully, and growing fainter, the barking of the collie was borne back to their ears, till finally the sound died away in the distance, and only the thud of breaking waves, the swish of their advance, with the backward suck of their waters in retreat, broke the surrounding quiet. A great silence and a great stillness reigned. At last the younger man threw down the cards, and lay back on his elbow, staring at the sea. "That's the finish," he said presently, in controlled quiet tones. "You've cleaned me out." "There's always the chance," the other returned, rolling a cigarette and lighting it, "of a change in the luck. Why not make use of paper and pencil, and have another run on it?" The loser shook his head. "No; I'm done. You have the devil's luck." There was a dazed look in his eyes, an unhappy lode. His companion, while feigning not to observe him was aware of it, aware too of the grim tightening of the lips, and the repressed passion underlying the unnatural calm of his manner. Guy Matheson did not often betray emotion. He had played and lost steadily for days, and had parted with his money with an indifference that had misled the other as to the resources at his command. The information that he was "cleaned out," with the corroborative evidence of his stunned expression, came with a shock of surprise to his hearer. That which he had set himself to effect had been accomplished sooner than he had hoped. Luck and superior skill had both been in his favour. The run of luck had been consistent; each day he had been apprehensive of its changing, but it had held steadily; if it held only a little longer, all would be well. The silence between them grew until it became difficult to break. To venture a trivial remark in the teeth of that grim pause was impossible. The man with the luck smoked reflectively, his eyes on the sand; the man without the luck stared seaward, indifferent in the preoccupation of his thoughts as to what construction his companion was likely to put upon his taciturnity. He was angry with himself, not alone because he had lost everything, but because he could not take his losses philosophically. He had no feeling of splendid adventure, no desire to flick his fingers in the face of fate and laugh. He felt much as he had felt when, a small boy, he had dropped a penny in the slot of an automatic sweet machine that was out of order, and had followed that failure to get a return for his money by dropping another, and this his last, penny in the same unresponsive receptacle. He had on that occasion kicked the offending machine viciously; to have been able to kick something now would have been a relief.