By this time twilight had fallen.

“Nearly eight o’clock, as I live!” muttered Wilkinson.  He had drawn forth his watch.  “I had no idea of this.  And we are ten miles from the city!”

A thought of his anxiously waiting wife flitted across his mind.  He remembered her last pleading injunction for him to come home early, and the promise he had given.  Alas! like so many more of his promises to her, made to be broken.

“Shall we return now; or order supper here?” said Carlton, in his bland way.

“I must go back immediately,” replied Wilkinson.  “It is an hour later than I supposed.  I was to have been home early this evening.”

“It is too late now to join your family at tea.  They have given you out before this.  So, I think we’d better order supper here.  The moon is full, and it will be almost as clear as daylight; and much pleasanter riding, for the dew will keep down the dust.  What say you?”

The end was, Wilkinson yielded.

“Not down in the mouth, because of this little run of ill-luck?” said Carlton, in a bantering way, as he saw a cloud settling over the face of his victim.

Lights had been brought in, and the two men still remained seated by the table at which they had been playing, awaiting the preparation of supper.

I’m never down in the mouth,” replied Wilkinson, forcing a smile to his countenance.  “Better luck next time, has always been my motto.”

“And it will carry you safely through the world.  Try another glass of brandy.”

“No—­I’ve taken enough already.”

“It isn’t every man who knows when he has enough,” returned the other.  “I’ve often wished that I knew exactly the right guage.”

And, as Carlton spoke, he poured some brandy into a glass, and, adding a little water, affected to take a deep draught thereof; but, though the glass was held long to his mouth, only a small portion of the contents passed his lips.  In replacing the tumbler on the table, he managed to give it a position behind the water-pitcher where the eye of Wilkinson could not rest upon it.  He need hardly have taken this trouble, for his companion was too much absorbed in his own thoughts to notice a matter like this.

“They’re a long time in getting supper,” remarked Carlton, in a well-affected tone of impatience.  “What is the time now?”

Wilkinson drew forth his watch, and, after glancing upon the face, replied—­

“Ten minutes after eight.”

“We shall have it pretty soon now, I suppose.  They don’t understand the double quick time movement out here.”

As Carlton said this, his eyes rested, with more than a mere passing interest, on the gold lever that Wilkinson, instead of returning to his pocket, retained in one hand, while with the other he toyed with the key and chain in a half-abstracted manner.

For the space of nearly a minute, neither of the men spoke, but the thought of each was at the same point.