victim of fate. She was not happyin her cousin's home, amidst this gambling, card-playing set. She, atleast, was pure, whoever else might be defiled. On that he would stakehis existence.
For a few days he thought a great deal about the subject, and duringthose few days he kept away from Elsinore Gardens and denied himself thepleasure of listening to a further instalment of Miss Keane'sreminiscences of her unhappy history.
If he were going to fall in love, he told himself sternly, he would fallin love with a woman of his own world, not with a girl, howeverbeautiful and interesting she might be, who was only a hanger-on of awoman well-born, but evidently _declassee_, a woman no longer moving inthe sphere to which she had been accustomed. In these reflections, heshowed sound sense.
But for a certain event that happened in the course of the next fewdays, he might have adhered to his good resolutions and have finallydismissed Miss Keane from his serious thoughts. And, in that case, thisstory would not have been written.
And then the event happened. Returning home to his rooms one night,about twelve o'clock, his man told him that Mr Esmond was waiting forhim in the sitting-room.
He found the little rotund man sitting in an easy-chair, white-faced,the marks of agitation written all over his countenance.
Wondering at this unusual spectacle--Tommy was frequently fussy, butalways self-contained--Spencer advanced, and held out his hand.
"What's up, Tommy? You're a late visitor, but always welcome." Hepointed to the decanters standing on the sideboard. "I hope you havehelped yourself?"
To Spencer's great surprise, the little man did not take the profferedhand. He spoke in a hoarse, choking voice, his lips twitching.
"I've helped myself once too often, Spencer. And I can't take the handof an honest man, for reasons. You've got it at once."
Spencer had average brains, but he was not very quick to realise themeaning of unexpected situations. At first, he thought the little manhad been drinking.
"Sit down, Tommy, and get it off your chest. What in the name of wonderis the matter?" he said kindly. He was rather fond of Tommy in a casualsort of way.
Esmond did not sit down at once, but went over to the sideboard, andmixed himself a stiff tumbler of whisky-and-soda. He gulped it down ata draught, and then took an armchair.
"You won't begrudge me that, I know," he said, speaking in the samestrained, hoarse voice. "It's the last drink I'll have in your rooms,the last drink in any house in England, I should say. I'm done for, oldman, to-morrow I clear out, eat my heart away in some beastly foreignhole."
No, Spencer's first surmise had been incorrect. The man was not drunk,not even elevated. His face was chalk-white, and he was trembling allover as if he had been stricken with palsy. But he was perfectly sober.
Spencer took a chair himself, and spoke a little sternly. "Pullyourself together, old man, and speak out. At first I thought you hadhad a drop too much. But I see that's not the case. Out with it.You've been waiting some time, my man informs me. You want to tell mesomething. Tell it."
Tommy Esmond moistened his dry lips with his tongue, and spoke.
"I don't quite know what instinct prompted me to come to you. Wehaven't known each other so very intimately, after all, but I alwaysfelt you were a bit more of a Christian than the other chaps I haveknown, less of a Pharisee--that you would be more likely to find excusesfor a poor devil who had yielded to temptation."
"Do get on," said Spencer a little impatiently. He did not at all likethe turn the conversation was taking.
Tommy spoke brokenly, he could not put his words together verycoherently, it appeared. But his halting utterance was simply due toemotion.
"I was at Elsinore Gardens to-night, playing cards. You know ElsinoreGardens, Mrs L'Estrange's flat?"
He was quite sober, but his agitation made him wander a bit, or he wouldnot have put the question.
"Of course I know Mrs L'Estrange's flat. It was you who took methere," said Spencer.
"Yes, we went there on the night of the raid, but I was not playing atyour table. I remember you lost, and I won. Well, somebody has tolose, and somebody else has to win."
Spencer made no comment on this obvious truism. Tommy Esmond againmoistened his dry lips with his tongue. He was a long time in coming tothe point, but he came to it at last.
"Well, old man, I was playing with an old pal of mine, with whom I havebeen in business for years. We had a nice code of signals arranged. Iwas as cautious as I could be, but my partner had been dining out, andhe was a bit indiscreet. There were three or four men watching us, theycaught us both, although, as I tell you, I was cautious. But I made oneslip, and they were down on me like a knife. You don't know my partner.It is the end of him. But it is the end of Tommy Esmond also."
To say that Spencer was disgusted would be to convey a faint idea of hisfeelings. And yet, as he looked at the huddled, trembling form in thechair, his sentiment was rather one of compassion than loathing. Whatwas there behind? What tragedy of circumstance had driven thisapparently light-hearted, butterfly little creature to such crookedways?
"You're an old hand, then? It's not the first time you've cheated?"
Tommy Esmond smiled wanly. He did not answer the question at once.
"What age do you guess me, Spencer?"
"At a casual glance, a little over fifty. You may be older. Looking atyou closely, you do seem a bit made up, dye and all that sort of thing."
"My dear sir, I am old enough to be your father. I shall never seesixty again."
"And when did you take to this game?" Esmond thought a little before hereplied, he was evidently counting the years.
"When I was twenty-two I got an _entree_ into society. I was thenenjoying an income of two pounds a week, I was a clerk in an insuranceoffice. At twenty-four I left the insurance business and startedcheating for a living."
Spencer uttered a horrified ejaculation. He had never come acrossanything quite like this, at any rate, in actual experience.
"Would you like to know something of my history, or would you like tokick me out at once, and have done with it?" asked Esmond quietly.
But there were still some remnants of compassion in Spencer. And he wasalso a little curious. He was dealing, after all, with a humandocument. Tommy's revelations would add to his experience of life.
"Tell me all you would like to say," he said.
"It will be a relief to unbosom myself, after the years I have led thislife," was Esmond's answer. "When I left Elsinore Gardens with my lifein ruins, I felt I could have shrieked it all out to the policemanstanding at the corner. I came on here, because I thought you wouldlisten to me, because I felt sure you were not a Pharisee."
Spencer motioned him to the sideboard. "Mix yourself another stiff peg,and steady your nerves. Then tell me as much as you like."
Esmond went over and helped himself. After a few seconds the ague-liketrembling ceased, and he was able to speak in a fairly steady voice.
"My father was a solicitor in a small way of business in an obscure townin the west of England. There were three children--an elder brother,myself, and a sister. My elder brother succeeded to the practice and isstill in the same place, making both ends meet on a microscopic income.My sister is dead.
"My father was a God-fearing, deeply religious man, and did more thanhis duty by his family. He scraped and pinched to give us a goodeducation, that being the only capital he could leave us. I was placedin an insurance office, the head of which was a distant connection of mymother's.
"If I had chosen to be content with my lot I daresay in time I mighthave done fairly well, as I had more than average abilities, and gavecomplete satisfaction in the performance of my duties.
"Unfortunately, I ran across, by the purest accident, a young man somecouple of years my senior. His father, a man of very good family, haddied a short time previously and left him a very decent income of abouttwo thousand a year. He had been at a pri
vate school with me when wewere boys.
"This young man took a violent fancy to me, I was slim and not badlooking in those days. He had the _entree_ to some of the best housesin London through his aristocratic connections. He took me with himeverywhere, as his bosom friend. I had certain social instincts,derived from Heaven knows where, and I soon found my feet. In twelvemonths I was able to run alone, sometimes I was able to get into houseswhere even he could not gain a footing. He laughingly declared that Ihad beaten him in the social race, but he was a good-natured fellow,without a particle of envy or meanness in his nature, and he was ratherproud than otherwise that the pupil had outstripped the master."
He paused for a moment. It was evident, that having kept silence for somany years, it was an enormous