“There’s no one there,” said he, returning to where I stood, and we walked down-stairs together.  On the landing, as we reached the lower passage, we met Mrs. Slade.  I had not, during this visit at Cedarville, stood face to face with her before.  Oh! what a wreck she presented, with her pale, shrunken countenance, hollow, lustreless eyes, and bent, feeble body.  I almost shuddered as I looked at her.  What a haunting and sternly rebuking spectre she must have moved, daily, before the eyes of her husband.

“Have you noticed Mr. Green about this morning"?” I asked.

“He hasn’t come down from his room yet,” she replied.

“Are you certain?” said my companion.  “I knocked several times at the door just now, but received no answer.”

“What do you want with him?” asked Mrs. Slade, fixing her eyes upon us.

“We are in search of Willy Hammond; and it has been suggested that he was with Green.”

“Knock twice lightly, and then three times more firmly,” said Mrs. Slade; and as she spoke, she glided past us with noiseless tread.

“Shall we go up together?”

I did not object; for, although I had no delegated right of intrusion, my feelings were so much excited in the case, that I went forward, scarcely reflecting on the propriety of so doing.

The signal knock found instant answer.  The door was softly opened, and the unshaven face of Simon Slade presented itself.

“Mr. Jacobs!” he said, with surprise in his tones.  “Do you wish to see me?”

“No, sir; I wish to see Mr. Green,” and with a quick, firm pressure against the door, he pushed it wide open.  The same party was there that I had seen on the night before,—­Green, young Hammond, Judge Lyman, and Slade.  On the table at which the three former were sitting, were cards, slips of paper, an ink-stand and pens, and a pile of bank-notes.  On a side-table, or, rather, butler’s tray, were bottles, decanters, and glasses.

“Judge Lyman!  Is it possible?” exclaimed Mr. Jacobs, the name of my companion.  “I did not expect to find you here.”

Green instantly swept his hands over the table to secure the money and bills it contained; but, ere he had accomplished his purpose, young Hammond grappled three or four narrow strips of paper, and hastily tore them into shreds.

“You’re a cheating scoundrel!” cried Green, fiercely, thrusting his hand into his bosom as if to draw from thence a weapon; but the words were scarcely uttered, ere Hammond sprung upon him with the fierceness of a tiger, bearing him down upon the floor.  Both hands were already about the gambler’s neck, and, ere the bewildered spectators could interfere, and drag him off.  Green was purple in the face, and nearly strangled.

“Call me a cheating scoundrel!” said Hammond, foaming at the mouth, as he spoke,—­“Me, whom you have followed like a thirsty blood-hound.  Me! whom you have robbed, and cheated, and debased from the beginning!  Oh! for a pistol to rid the earth of the blackest-hearted villain that walks its surface.  Let me go, gentlemen!  I have nothing left in the world to care for,—­there is no consequence I fear.  Let me do society one good service before T die’”