“But will that bring her back?”

Jack did not reply, but moved from the window toward the door.

“Don’t go yet, Jack; light the candle, and sit by the table.  It’s a comfort to see ye, if nothin’ else.”

Jack hesitated, and then complied.  He drew a pack of cards from his pocket and shuffled them, glancing at the bed.  But Brown’s face was turned to the wall.  When Mr. Hamlin had shuffled the cards, he cut them, and dealt one card on the opposite side of the table and toward the bed, and another on his side of the table for himself.  The first was a deuce, his own card, a king.  He then shuffled and cut again.  This time “dummy” had a queen, and himself a four-spot.  Jack brightened up for the third deal.  It brought his adversary a deuce, and himself a king again.  “Two out of three,” said Jack, audibly.

“What’s that, Jack?” said Brown.

“Nothing.”

Then Jack tried his hand with dice; but he always threw sixes, and his imaginary opponent aces.  The force of habit is sometimes confusing.

Meanwhile, some magnetic influence in Mr. Hamlin’s presence, or the anodyne of liquor, or both, brought surcease of sorrow, and Brown slept.  Mr. Hamlin moved his chair to the window, and looked out on the town of Wingdam, now sleeping peacefully—­its harsh outlines softened and subdued, its glaring colors mellowed and sobered in the moonlight that flowed over all.  In the hush he could hear the gurgling of water in the ditches, and the sighing of the pines beyond the hill.  Then he looked up at the firmament, and as he did so a star shot across the twinkling field.  Presently another, and then another.  The phenomenon suggested to Mr. Hamlin a fresh augury.  If in another fifteen minutes another star should fall—­He sat there, watch in hand, for twice that time, but the phenomenon was not repeated.

The clock struck two, and Brown still slept.  Mr. Hamlin approached the table and took from his pocket a letter, which he read by the flickering candlelight.  It contained only a single line, written in pencil, in a woman’s hand: 

“Be at the corral, with the buggy, at three.”

The sleeper moved uneasily, and then awoke.  “Are you there Jack?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t go yet.  I dreamed just now, Jack—­dreamed of old times.  I thought that Sue and me was being married agin, and that the parson, Jack, was—­who do you think?—­you!”

The gambler laughed, and seated himself on the bed—­the paper still in his hand.

“It’s a good sign, ain’t it?” queried Brown.

“I reckon.  Say, old man, hadn’t you better get up?”

The “old man,” thus affectionately appealed to, rose, with the assistance of Hamlin’s outstretched hand.

“Smoke?”

Brown mechanically took the proffered cigar.

“Light?”

Jack had twisted the letter into a spiral, lit it, and held it for his companion.  He continued to hold it until it was consumed, and dropped the fragment—­a fiery star—­from the open window.  He watched it as it fell, and then returned to his friend.