Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1903-06-11

but unmistakable face and form of
Lady Kildonan.
The secret was out: she was a
gambler; not from pleasure, not from
choice, but because it was in her
blood, bred by generations of spend
thrift, fast-living ancestors, whom
nothing but laws of entail, and the oc-
casional happy accident of a possessor
of the estates who was free from the
family vice, had stopped in the race Of
ruin. Her fathers strange injunc-
tons; her feverish anxiety to go
abroad; her exhausted calm after the
visits TO Liverpool; all was explained.
AS she sat with her brilliant eyes in
capable Of seeing anything but the
cards, all the passon of her ardent,
energetic animal nature concentrated
in the one absorbing pursuit, so that
in the very presence or her husband,
her Judge. she remained as unmoved,
as unconscious, as if he had been
statue, the pity and the horror of it all
for the deceived husband-for the
guilty but ill-staTTed wife-struck
Armathwaite with force that turned
him giddy, and sick, and trembling.
I Lord Kildonan locked at him, meet
ing his griefstricken eyes with cold
grey ones.
1.-The room. is over warm for ye," he
said, in a low voice, with a strcng ac-
cent.
And they made their way cutie quiet
ly, disturbing nobody, exciting no re-
mark, into the first room.
CHAPTER xxx.
Three long hours of waiting, watch
ing, in wearisome suspense, in feverish
excitement, Frank Armathwaite passed
that night in the gambling hell by the
side of his older, calmer friend. Lord
Kildonan seemed to the younger man
! to carry his immoyable stolidity to a
point at which it was difficult to dis
tnguish it from absolute apathy; and
Frank wondered. as ne glanced furtive-
! ly from time to time at the steely eyes
! and hard mouth of his companion,
whether the discovery Of his wife's
| treachery, the confirmation of it by the
evidence of his own eyes, had killed all
his feeling for her outright, so that all
! that remained to be done was to cut
her off, to cast her adrift without a
culver, without a pang. She had de-
served it-there was no denying that;
hut Frank felt, as he looked at the
Scotchman's cast-iron face, and shud-
dered at the deadly patience which
7 INN do hi,,, 10
plan he had set himself, that the cold
justice the injured husband was pre-
pairing to mete out was something UNI
worthy in it's harshness of his better,
kinder self.
Franks momentary pity for the wo-
man had given place to utter disgust
as her face grew more ard more
! flushed with the gamblers fever as the
night wore on, until even under her
veil the beautiful features seemed to
lose all their charm, and the unsexing
passion to change her fairness into a
lurid glow of boldness and daring al
most diabolical. Lord Kildonan had
sat down with his companion at one
of the small tables in the baccarat
saloon. from which they could watch
both his wife and Crosmont. To avoid
exciting attention they played ecarte,
the older man holding his cards as
steadily and playing as carefully as if
he had been in his own house, while
the hands of the younger shook, his
mind wandered, and the hot air seem
ed to raise films of steaming vapour
between his straining eyes and the
cards.
You have bad nerves." said Lord
Kildonan. glancing at him with cold
smile. and then turning his eyes,
without the least apparent effort. to
the woman and the man he was watch
ling.
If they could know, those fools-if
they had the sense to direct their eyes
to the obscure corner where their
judge. their master sat, holding them
with penetrating gaze that froze
Armathwaite's blood by its pitiless-
ness! But they were blind, blind as
moths-she intent on the game, and he
on her. She was losing heavily.
From time to time she would turn,
with fierce, imperious movement to
hold out hungry, clutching fingers to-
wards Crosmont, and to hiss out an
angry, coarse exclamation of inn
patience If he uttered a low word of
protest. or delayed in putting into her
hot. dry hands the money she wanted.
AT last, when it seemed to Armath-
waite as if the night must have drag
ged itself far into the next day, Cros-
mont put his hand upon her shoulder
just as the stake had been swept in
by the dealer, and she was turning
ravenously for more money.
st is quarter to three" Armath-
waite heard him say. You must
come"
| Just one more-one more dealt"
she painted, hoarsely.
81 have no more money. Gomez"
said he.