Now, these expressions returned to his mind, and their effect upon him was manifested in the thought,—­

“If I hadn’t been drinking, he would have found in me a different antagonist altogether.”

It was an easy transition from this state of mind to another.  It was almost natural for the wish to try his luck again at cards to be formed; particularly as he was in great need of money, and saw no legitimate means of getting the needed supply.

The frequency with which Ellis had spent his evenings abroad made him acquainted with many phases of city life hidden from ordinary observers.  Idle curiosity had more than once led him to visit certain gambling-houses on a mere tour of observation; and, during these visits, he had each time been tempted to try a game or two, in which cases little had been lost or won.  The motive for winning did not then exist in tempting strength; and, besides, Ellis was naturally a cautious man.  Now, however, the motive did exist.

“Yes, I do play well,” said he, mentally answering the remembered compliment of Carlton, “and but for your stealing away my brains with liquor, you would have found me a different kind of antagonist.”

Ellis had fifty dollars in his pocket.  This sum was the amount of the day’s sales of goods in his store.  Instead of leaving the money in his fire-closet, he had taken it with him, a sort of dim idea being in his mind that, possibly, it might be wanted for some such purpose as now contemplated.  So he was all prepared for a trial of his skill; and the trial was made.  To one of the haunts of iniquity before visited in mere reprehensible curiosity, he now repaired with the deliberate purpose of winning money to make up for losses already sustained, and to provide for the next day’s payments.  He went in with fifty dollars in his pocket-book; at twelve o’clock he left the place perfectly sober, and the winner of three hundred dollars.  Though often urged to drink, he had, knowing his weakness, firmly declined in every instance.

Cara, he found, as usual on returning home late at night, asleep.  He sought his pillow without disturbing her, and lay for a long time with his thoughts busy among golden fancies.  In a few hours he had won three hundred dollars, and that from a player of no common skill.

“Yes, yes, Carlton said true.  I play well.”  Over and over did Ellis repeat this, as he lay with his mind too much excited for sleep.

Wearied nature yielded at last.  His dreams repeated the incidents of the evening, and reconstructed them into new and varied forms.  When he awoke, at day-dawn, from his restless slumber, it took but a short time for his thoughts to arrange themselves into a purpose, and that purpose was to seek out Carlton as the first business of the day, and win back the evidence of debt that he had against him.

The meeting of Ellis and his wife at the breakfast-table had less of coldness and reserve in it than their meeting at tea-time.  No reference was made to the previous evening, nor to the fact of his having remained out to a late hour.