Altamont,'--that was the phrase he used"--Altamont said with a
grin--and I got plenty more of this language from the two fellows,
and was in the thick of the row with them, when another of our party
came in. This was a friend of mine--a gent I had met at Boulogne, and
had taken to the countess's myself. And as he hadn't played at all on
the previous night, and had actually warned me against Bloundell and
the others, I told the story to him, and so did the other two.

"'I am very sorry,' says he. 'You would go on playing: the countess
entreated you to discontinue. These gentlemen offered repeatedly to
stop. It was you that insisted on the large stakes, not they.' In fact
he charged dead against me: and when the two others went away, he told
me how the marky would shoot me as sure as my name was--was what it
is. 'I left the countess crying, too,' said he. 'She hates these two
men; she has warned you repeatedly against them,' (which she actually
had done, and often told me never to play with them) 'and now,
colonel, I have left her in hysterics almost, lest there should be
any quarrel between you, and that confounded marky should put a bullet
through your head. It's my belief,' says my friend, 'that that woman
is distractedly in love with you.'

"'Do you think so?' says I; upon which my friend told me how she had
actually gone down on her knees to him and said, 'Save Colonel
Altamont!'

"As soon as I was dressed, I went and called upon that lovely woman.
She gave a shriek and pretty near fainted when she saw me. She called
me Ferdinand--I'm blest if she didn't."

"I thought your name was Jack," said Strong, with a laugh; at which