第56章 THE FASCINATION(21)

Wildeve had been brooding ever since they started on the mean estimation in which he was held by his wife's friends;and it cut his heart severely.As the minutes passed he had gradually drifted into a revengeful intention without knowing the precise moment of forming it.This was to teach Mrs.Yeobright a lesson, as he considered it to be;in other words, to show her if he could that her niece's husband was the proper guardian of her niece's money.

"Well, here goes!" said Christian, beginning to unlace one boot."I shall dream of it nights and nights, I suppose; but I shall always swear my flesh don't crawl when I think o't!"He thrust his hand into the boot and withdrew one of poor Thomasin's precious guineas, piping hot.

Wildeve had already placed a sovereign on the stone.

The game was then resumed.Wildeve won first, and Christian ventured another, winning himself this time.

The game fluctuated, but the average was in Wildeve's favour.

Both men became so absorbed in the game that they took no heed of anything but the pigmy objects immediately beneath their eyes, the flat stone, the open lantern, the dice, and the few illuminated fern-leaves which lay under the light, were the whole world to them.

At length Christian lost rapidly; and presently, to his horror, the whole fifty guineas belonging to Thomasin had been handed over to his adversary.

"I don't care--I don't care!" he moaned, and desperately set about untying his left boot to get at the other fifty.

"The devil will toss me into the flames on his three-pronged fork for this night's work, I know! But perhaps I shall win yet, and then I'll get a wife to sit up with me o'

nights and I won't be afeard, I won't! Here's another for'ee, my man!" He slapped another guinea down upon the stone, and the dice-box was rattled again.

Time passed on.Wildeve began to be as excited as Christian himself.When commencing the game his intention had been nothing further than a bitter practical joke on Mrs.Yeobright.To win the money, fairly or otherwise, and to hand it contemptuously to Thomasin in her aunt's presence, had been the dim outline of his purpose.

But men are drawn from their intentions even in the course of carrying them out, and it was extremely doubtful, by the time the twentieth guinea had been reached, whether Wildeve was conscious of any other intention than that of winning for his own personal benefit.

Moreover, he was now no longer gambling for his wife's money, but for Yeobright's; though of this fact Christian, in his apprehensiveness, did not inform him till afterwards.

It was nearly eleven o'clock, when, with almost a shriek, Christian placed Yeobright's last gleaming guinea upon the stone.In thirty seconds it had gone the way of its companions.

Christian turned and flung himself on the ferns in a convulsion of remorse, "O, what shall I do with my wretched self?" he groaned."What shall I do? Will any good Heaven hae mercy upon my wicked soul?""Do? Live on just the same."

"I won't live on just the same! I'll die! I say you are a--a----""A man sharper than my neighbour."

"Yes, a man sharper than my neighbour; a regular sharper!""Poor chips-in-porridge, you are very unmannerly.""I don't know about that! And I say you be unmannerly!

You've got money that isn't your own.Half the guineas are poor Mr.Clym's.""How's that?"

"Because I had to gie fifty of 'em to him.Mrs.Yeobright said so.""Oh?...Well, 'twould have been more graceful of her to have given them to his wife Eustacia.But they are in my hands now."Christian pulled on his boots, and with heavy breathings, which could be heard to some distance, dragged his limbs together, arose, and tottered away out of sight.

Wildeve set about shutting the lantern to return to the house, for he deemed it too late to go to Mistover to meet his wife, who was to be driven home in the captain's four-wheel.

While he was closing the little horn door a figure rose from behind a neighbouring bush and came forward into the lantern light.It was the reddleman approaching.

8 - A New Force Disturbs the Current Wildeve stared.Venn looked coolly towards Wildeve, and, without a word being spoken, he deliberately sat himself down where Christian had been seated, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out a sovereign, and laid it on the stone.

"You have been watching us from behind that bush?"said Wildeve.

The reddleman nodded."Down with your stake," he said.

"Or haven't you pluck enough to go on?"

Now, gambling is a species of amusement which is much more easily begun with full pockets than left off with the same;and though Wildeve in a cooler temper might have prudently declined this invitation, the excitement of his recent success carried him completely away.He placed one of the guineas on a slab beside the reddleman's sovereign.

"Mine is a guinea," he said.

"A guinea that's not your own," said Venn sarcastically.

"It is my own," answered Wildeve haughtily."It is my wife's, and what is hers is mine.""Very well; let's make a beginning." He shook the box, and threw eight, ten, and nine; the three casts amounted to twenty-seven.

This encouraged Wildeve.He took the box; and his three casts amounted to forty-five.

Down went another of the reddleman's sovereigns against his first one which Wildeve laid.This time Wildeve threw fifty-one points, but no pair.The reddleman looked grim, threw a raffle of aces, and pocketed the stakes.

"Here you are again," said Wildeve contemptuously.

"Double the stakes." He laid two of Thomasin's guineas, and the reddleman his two pounds.Venn won again.

New stakes were laid on the stone, and the gamblers proceeded as before.