He had chained Chance to his chariot-wheel and would persevere now that the good time had come.

What did he care for the creature at his elbow?
He thought of all the good things which money could again purchase for him as he carefully fingered the gold for the next stake.

He had been rich, though he was now poor; though how could a man be accounted poor who had an endless sum of six hundred napoleons in his pocket, a sum which was, in truth, endless, while it could be so rapidly recruited in this fashion?
The next stake he also won, but as he raked all the pieces which the croupier pushed toward him his mind had become intent on another sphere and on other persons.

Let him win what he might, his old haunts were now closed against him.

What good would money do him, living such a life as he must now be compelled to pass?
As he thought of this the five-and-twenty napoleons on the table were taken away from him almost without consciousness on his part.
At that moment there came a voice in his ear,--not the voice of his attending friend, but one of which he accurately knew the lisping, fiendish sound: "Ah, Captain Scarborough, I thought it vas posshible you might be here.