Endicott’s movements, his quick gestures, well aided by the wide lace cuffs which fell over his hand, his exclamation of contempt, had all contributed to make it seem before the spectators as if he had found a few winning cards secreted inside the lining of Richard Lambert’s doublet.

“Nay! young sir,” he said with an evil sneer, “meseems that explanations had best come from you.  Here,” he added, pointing significantly at the cards which he had just dropped out of his own hand, “here is a vastly pleasing collection ... aces and kings ... passing serviceable in a quiet game of primero among friends.”

Lambert had been momentarily dumfounded, for undoubtedly he had not perceived Endicott’s treacherous movements, and had absolutely no idea whence had come those awful cards which somehow or other seemed to be convicting him of lying and cheating:  so conscious was he of his own innocence, that never for a moment did the slightest fear cross his mind that he could not immediately make clear his own position, and proclaim his own integrity.

“This is an infamous plot,” he said calmly, but very firmly.  “Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse,” he added, turning to face his employer, who still stood motionless and silent in the background, “in the name of Heaven I beg of you to explain to these gentlemen that you have known me from boyhood.  Will you speak?” he added insistently, conscious of a strange tightening of his heartstrings as the man on whom he relied, remained impassive and made no movement to come to his help.  “Will you tell them, I pray you, sir, that you know me to be a man of honor, incapable of such villainy as they suggest? ...  You know that I did not even wish to play ...”

“That reluctance of yours, my good Lambert, seems to have been a pretty comedy forsooth,” replied Sir Marmaduke lightly, “and you played to some purpose, meseems, when you once began....  Nay!  I pray you,” he added with unmitigated harshness, “do not drag me into your quarrels....  I cannot of a truth champion your virtue.”

Lambert’s cheeks became deathly pale.  The first inkling of the deadly peril of his own situation had suddenly come to him with Sir Marmaduke’s callous words.  It seemed to him as if the very universe must stand still in the face of such treachery.  The man whom he loved with all the fervor of a grateful nature, the man who knew him and whom he had wholly trusted, was proving his most bitter, most damning enemy.

After Sir Marmaduke’s speech, his own employer’s repudiation, he felt that all his chances of clearing his character before these sneering gentlemen had suddenly vanished.

“This is cruel, and infamous,” he protested, conscious innocence within him still striving to fight a hard battle against overwhelming odds.  “Gentlemen! ... as I am a man of honor, I swear that I do not know what all this means!”

“It means, young man, that you are an accursed cheat ... a thief ... a liar!” shouted Segrave, whose last vestige of self-control suddenly vanished, whilst mad frenzy once more held him in its grip.  “I swear by God that you shall pay me for this!”