dismissed all thoughts of limits from his mind, and was
determined to risk or gain everything.

'At midnight he had lost L48,000.
'Affairs now began to be serious. His supper was not so hearty.

While the rest were eating, he walked about the room, and began
to limit his ambition to recovery, and not to gain.

'When you play to win back, the fun is over: there is nothing to
recompense you for your bodilytortures and your degraded

feelings; and the very best result that can happen, while it has
no charms, seems to your cowed mind impossible.

'On they played, and the duke lost more. His mind was jaded. He
floundered--he made desperate efforts, but plunged deeper in the

slough. Feeling that, to regain his ground, each card must tell,
he acted on each as if it must win, and the consequences of this

insanity (for a gamester at such a crisis is really insane) were,
that his losses were prodigious.

'Another morning came, and there they sat, ankle-deep in cards.
No attempt at breakfast now--no affectation of making a toilet,

or airing the room. The atmosphere was hot, to be sure, but it
well became such a hell. There they sat, in total, in positive

forgetfulness of everything but the hot game they were hunting
down. There was not a man in the room, except Tom Cogit, who

could have told you the name of the town in which they were
living. There they sat, almost breathless, watching every turn

with the fell look in their cannibal eyes, which showed their
total inability to sympathize with their fellow-beings. All the

forms of society had been forgotten. There was no snuff-box
handed about now, for courtesy, admiration, or a pinch; no

affectation of occasionally making a remark upon any other topic
but the all-engrossing one.

'Lord Castlefort rested with his arms on the table:--a false
tooth had got unhinged. His Lordship, who, at any other time,

would have been most annoyed, coolly put it in his pocket. His
cheeks had fallen, and he looked twenty years older.

'Lord Dice had torn off his cravat, and his hair flung down over
his callous, bloodless checks, straight as silk.

'Temple Grace looked as if he were blighted by lightning; and his
deep-blue eyes gleamed like a hyaena.

'The baron was least changed.
'Tom Cogit, who smelt that the crisis was at hand, was as quiet

as a bribed rat.
'On they played till six o'clock in the evening, and then they

agreed to desist till after dinner. Lord Dice threw himself on a
sofa. Lord Castlefort breathed with difficulty. The rest walked

about. While they were resting on their oars, the young duke
roughly made up his accounts. He found that he was minus about

L100,000.
'Immense as this loss was, he was more struck--more appalled, let

us say--at the strangeness of the surrounding scene, than even by
his own ruin. As he looked upon his fellow-gamesters, he seemed,

for the first time in his life, to gaze upon some of those
hideous demons of whom he had read. He looked in the mirror at

himself. A blight seemed to have fallen over his beauty, and his
presence seemed accursed. He had pursued a dissipated, even more

than a dissipated, career. Many were the nights that had been
spent by him not on his couch; great had been the exhaustion that

he had often experienced; haggard had sometimes even been the
lustre of his youth. But when had been marked upon his brow this

harrowing care? When had his features before been stamped with
this anxiety, this anguish, this baffled desire, this strange,

unearthly scowl, which made him even tremble? What! was it
possible?--it could not be--that in time he was to be like those

awful, those unearthly, those unhallowed things that were around
him. He felt as if he had fallen from his state, as if he had

dishonoured his ancestry, as if he had betrayed his trust. He
felt a criminal.

'In the darkness of his meditations a flash burst from his lurid
mind, a celestial light appeared to dissipate this thickening

gloom, and his soul felt, as it were, bathed with the softening
radiancy. He thought of May Dacre, he thought of everything that

was pure, and holy, and beautiful, and luminous, and calm. It
was the innate virtue of the man that made this appeal to his

corrupted nature. His losses seemed nothing; his dukedom would
be too slight a ransom for freedom from these ghouls, and for the

breath of the sweet air.
'He advanced to the baron, and expressed his desire to play no

more. There was an immediate stir. All jumped up, and now the
deed was done. Cant, in spite of their exhaustion, assumed her

reign. They begged him to have his revenge,--were quite annoyed
at the result,--had no doubt he would recover if he proceeded.

'Without noticing their remarks, he seated himself at the table,
and wrote cheques for their respectiveamounts, Tom Cogit jumping

up and bringing him the inkstand. Lord Castlefort, in the most
affectionate manner, pocketed the draft; at the same time

recommending the duke not to be in a hurry, but to send it when
he was cool. Lord Dice received his with a bow, Temple Grace

with a sigh, the baron with an avowal of his readiness always to
give him his revenge.

'The duke, though sick at heart, would not leave the room with
any evidence of a broken spirit; and when Lord Castlefort again

repeated--"Pay us when we meet again," he said, "I think it very
improbable that we shall meet again, my Lord. I wished to know

what gaming was. I had heard a great deal about it. It is not
so very disgusting; but I am a young man, and cannot play tricks

with my complexion."
'He reached his house. The Bird was out. He gave orders for

himself not to be disturbed, and he went to bed; but in vain he
tried to sleep. What rack exceeds the torture of an excited

brain and an exhausted body? His hands and feet were like ice,
his brow like fire; his ears rung with supernatural roaring; a

nausea had seized upon him, and death he would have welcomed. In
vain, in vain he courted repose; in vain he had recourse to every

expedient to wile himself to slumber. Each minute he started
from his pillow with some phrase which reminded him of his late

fearful society. Hour after hour moved on with its leaden pace;
each hour he heard strike, and each hour seemed an age. Each

hour was only a signal to cast off some covering, or shift his
position. It was, at length, morning. With a feeling that he

should go mad if he remained any longer in bed, he rose, and
paced his chamber. The air refreshed him. He threw himself on

the floor, the cold crept over his senses, and he slept.'[13]
[13] 'The Young Duke,' by B. Disraeli, chapter VIII. This

gambling is the turning-point in the young duke's career; he
proves himself at length not unworthy of his noble ancestry arm

his high hereditary position,--takes his place in the Senate, and
weds the maiden of his love.

CHAPTER IV.
ATROCITIES, DUELS, SUICIDES, AND EXECUTION OF GAMBLERS.

The history of all nations is but the record of their cupidity;
and when the fury of gaming appears on the scene, it has never

failed to double the insolence and atrocities of tyranny.
The atrocious gambling of the Hindoo Rajas has been related;[14]

and I have incidentally adverted to similar concomitants of the
vice among all nations. I now propose to bring together a series

of facts specially elucidative of the harrowing theme.
[14] Chapter II.

One of the Ptolemys, kings of Egypt, required all causes to be
submitted to him whilst at play, and pronounced even sentence of

death according to chance. On one occasion his wife, Berenice,
pronounced thereanent those memorable words:--'There cannot be

too much deliberation when the death of a man is concerned'--
afterwards adopted by Juvenal--Nulla unquam de morte hominis