of the place, than the bourgeois air and dress of my ci-devant second.

"What! another Englishman?" thought I, as I turned round and perceived a
thick, rough great coat, which could possibly belong to no continental
shoulders. The wearer was standing directly opposite the seat of the
swarthy stranger; his hat was slouched over his face; I moved in order to
get a clearer view of his countenance. It was the same person I had seen
with Thornton that morning. Never to this moment have I forgotten the
stern and ferocious expression with which he was gazing upon the keen and
agitated features of the gambler opposite. In the eye and lip there was
neither pleasure, hatred, nor scorn, in their simple and unalloyed
elements; but each seemed blent and mingled into one deadly concentration
of evil passions.

This man neither played, nor spoke, nor moved. He appeared utterly
insensible of every feeling in common with those around. There he stood,
wrapt in his own dark and inscrutable thoughts, never, for one instant,
taking his looks from the varying countenance which did not observe their
gaze, nor altering the withering character of their almost demoniacal
expression. I could not tear myself from the spot. I felt chained by some
mysterious and undefinable interest; my attention was first diverted into
a new channel, by a loud exclamation from the dark visaged gambler at the
table; it was the first he had uttered, notwithstanding his anxiety; and,
from the deep, thrilling tone in which it was expressed, it conveyed a
keen sympathy with the overcharged feelings which it burst from.

With a trembling hand, he took from an old purse the few Napoleons that
were still left there. He set them all at one hazard, on the rouge. He
hung over the table with a dropping lip; his hands were tightly clasped
in each other; his nerves seemed strained into the last agony of