“Her whole endeavour was to make me as much as possible, forget the past.  She wanted, as much as possible, to wean me away from my gambling pursuits, but that was impossible.  I had no hope, no other prospect.

“Thus she strove, but I could see each day she was getting paler, and more pale; her figure, before round, was more thin, and betrayed signs of emaciation.  This preyed upon me; and, when fortune denied me the means of carrying home that which she so much wanted, I could never return for two days at a time.  Then I would find her shedding tears, and sighing; what could I say?  If I had anything to take her, then I used to endeavour to make her forget that I had been away.

“‘Ah!’ she would exclaim, ’you will find me dead one of these days; what you do now for one or two days, you will do by-and-bye for many days, perhaps weeks.’—­’Do not anticipate evil.’

“’I cannot do otherwise; were you in any other kind of employment but that of gambling,’ she said, ’I should have some hope of you; but, as it is, there is none.’—­’Speak not of it; my chances may turn out favourable yet, and you may be again as you were.’

“’Never.’—­’But fortune is inconstant, and may change in my favour as much as she has done in others.’

“’Fortune is indeed constant, but misfortune is as inconstant.’—­’You are prophetic of evil.”

“’Ah!  I would to Heaven I could predict good; but who ever yet heard of a ruined gambler being able to retrieve himself by the same means that he was ruined?’

“Thus we used to converse, but our conversation was usually of but little comfort to either of us, for we could give neither any comfort to the other; and as that was usually the case, our interviews became less frequent, and of less duration.  My answer was always the same.

“’I have no other chance; my prospects are limited to that one place; deprive me of that, and I never more should be able to bring you a mouthful of bread.’

“Day after day,—­day after day, the same result followed, and I was as far from success as ever I was, and ever should be; I was yet a beggar.

“The time flew by; my little girl was nearly four years old, but she knew not the misery her father and mother had to endure.  The poor little thing sometimes went without more than a meal a day; and while I was living thus upon the town, upon the chances of the gaming-table, many a pang did she cause me, and so did her mother.  My constant consolation was this,—­

“‘It is bad luck now,’ I would say; ’but will be better by-and-bye; things cannot always continue thus.  It is all for them—­all for them.’

“I thought that by continuing constantly in one course, I must be at land at the ebb of the tide.  ‘It cannot always flow one way,’ I thought.  I had often heard people say that if you could but have the resolution to play on, you must in the end seize the turn of fortune.