A deep groan startled them and they sprang to their feet, pale and trembling with sudden terror, each holding his breath and straining his ear to catch a repetition of the dread sound.

But all was silent, and after a moment of anxious waiting, they sat down to their game again; trying to conceal and shake off their fears with a forced, unnatural laugh.

But scarcely had they taken the cards into their hands when a second groan, deeper, louder and more prolonged than the first, again started them to their feet.

“I tell you this is growing serious,” whispered one in a shaking voice, his very lips white with fear.

“It came from under the table,” gasped Ward, “look what’s there.”

“Look yourself.”

“Both together then,” and simultaneously they bent down and peered into the space underneath the board.

There was nothing there.

“What can it have been?” they asked each other.

“Oh, nonsense! what fools we are! of course somebody’s ill in one of the state-rooms.”  And they resumed their game for the second time.

But a voice full of unutterable anguish, came from beneath their feet, “’Father Abraham have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue:  for I am tormented in this flame,” and in mortal terror they sprang up, dashed down their cards and fled, not even waiting to gather up the “filthy lucre” for which they wore selling their souls.

It was the last game of cards for that trip.

The captain coming in shortly after the sudden flight of the gamblers, took charge of the money, and the next day restored it to the owners.

To Elsie’s observant eyes it presently became evident that the Dalys were in very straitened circumstances.  They made no complaint, but with her warm sympathy and delicate tact, she soon drew from the wife all the information she needed to convince her that here was a case that called for the pecuniary assistance Providence had put it in her power to give.

She consulted with her husband, and the result was a warm invitation to the Dalys to spend the winter at Viamede, where they would have all the benefit of the mild climate, congenial society, use of the library, horses, etc., and be at no expense.

“Oh how kind, how very kind!” Mrs. Daly said with tears of joy and gratitude, “we have hardly known how we should meet the most necessary expenses of this trip, but have been trying to cast our care upon the Lord, asking him to provide.  And how wonderfully he has answered our petitions.  But—­it seems too much, too much for you to do for strangers.”

“Strangers, my dear friend!” Elsie answered, pressing her hand affectionately, “art we not sisters in Christ?  ’Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.’  ‘Ye are all one in Christ Jesus.’

“We feel, my husband and I, that we are only the stewards of his bounty; and that because he has said, ’Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me,’ it is the greatest privilege and delight to do anything for his people.”