Phil--Phyllis is her name, you know. This is for life. I am just bound up in her, and she would go through fire and water for me. But she is rich, the only daughter of a Midland iron-master with tons of money. Her people are awfully nice, and I think they approve of me, though they have no idea that Phil and I are engaged."

He paused to gulp down a strong decoction of brandy and soda. The difficult part of his story was coming.

"You can quite believe," he continued, "that I did not want to ask her father, Sir William Browne--he was knighted by the late Queen for his distinguished municipal services--to give his daughter to a chap who hadn't a cent. He supposes I am fairly well off, living as I do, and I can't bear acting under false pretences. I hate it like poison, though in this world a man often has to do what he doesn't like. However, this time I determined to be straight and above board. It was a very odd fact, but I just wanted £3,000 to enable me to make a move which, I tell you, ought to result in a very fair sum of money, sufficient, at any rate, to render it a reasonable proposition for Phil and me to get married."

Claude was an appreciative listener. These love stories of real life are often so much more dramatic than the fictions of the novel or the stage.

"The opportunity came, to my mind, in this big tournament. I had no difficulty of getting odds in six or seven to one to far more than I was able to pay if I lost. Phil came into the scheme with me--she knows all about me, you know--and we both regarded it as a certainty. Then the collapse came. She wanted to get the money from her mother to enable me to pay up, but I would not hear of it. I pretended that I could raise the wind some other way. The fact is I was wild with myself and with my luck generally. Then there was the disgrace of failing to settle on Monday, combined with the general excitement of that dream and a fearfully disturbed night. To make a long story short, I thought the best thing to do was to try a final plunge, and if it failed, to quit. I even took steps to make Phil believe I was a bad lot, so that she might not fret too much after me."Mensmore's voice was a little unsteady in this last sentence. The
barrister tried to cheer him by a little bit of raillery:
"I hope you have not succeeded too well?" he laughed.
"Oh, it is all right now. I mean that I left her some papers which would bring things to her knowledge that, unexplained by me, would give anyone a completely false impression."
The subject was evidently a painful one, so Bruce did not pursue it.
"About this 

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