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Mr. Hamlin’s only response to this meteorological observation was a yawn, and a preliminary tug at his coat as he began to remove it.

“I thought ye couldn’t mind doin’ me a favor,” continued Peg, with a hard, awkward laugh, “partik’ly seein’ ez folks allowed you’d sorter bin a friend o’ mine, and hed stood up for me at times when you hedn’t any partikler call to do it. I hevn’t” she continued, looking down on her lap, and following with her finger and thumb a seam of her gown,–“I hevn’t so many friends ez slings a kind word for me these times that I disremember them.” Her under lip quivered a little here; and, after vainly hunting for a forgotten handkerchief, she finally lifted the hem of her gown, wiped her snub nose upon it, but left the tears still in her eyes as she raised them to the man, Mr. Hamlin, who had by this time divested himself of his coat, stopped unbuttoning his waistcoat, and looked at her.

“Like ez not thar’ll be high water on the North Fork, ef this rain keeps on,” said Peg, as if apologetically, looking toward the window.

The other rain having ceased, Mr. Hamlin began to unbutton his waistcoat again.

“I wanted to ask ye a favor about Mr.–about–Jack Folinsbee,” began Peg again hurriedly. “He’s ailin’ agin, and is mighty low. And he’s losin’ a heap o’ money here and thar, and mostly to YOU. You cleaned him out of two thousand dollars last night–all he had.”

“Well?” said the gambler coldly.

“Well, I thought ez you woz a friend o’ mine, I’d ask ye to let up a little on him,” said Peg, with an affected laugh. “You kin do it. Don’t let him play with ye.”

“Mistress Margaret Moffat,” said Jack, with lazy deliberation, taking off his watch, and beginning to wind it up, “ef you’re that much stuck after Jack Folinsbee, YOU kin keep him off of me much easier than I kin. You’re a rich woman. Give him enough money to break my bank, or break himself for good and all; but don’t keep him forlin’ round me in hopes to make a raise. It don’t pay, Mistress Moffat–it don’t pay!”

A finer nature than Peg’s would have misunderstood or resented the gambler’s slang, and the miserable truths that underlaid it. But she comprehended him instantly, and sat hopelessly silent.

“Ef you’ll take my advice,” continued Jack, placing his watch and chain under his pillow, and quietly unloosing his cravat, “you’ll quit this yer forlin’, marry that chap, and hand over to him the money and the money-makin’ that’s killin’ you. He’ll get rid of it soon enough. I don’t say this because I expect to git it; for, when he’s got that much of a raise, he’ll make a break for ‘Frisco, and lose it to some first-class sport THERE. I don’t say, neither, that you mayn’t be in luck enough to reform him. I don’t say, neither–and it’s a derned sight more likely!–that you mayn’t be luckier yet, and he’ll up and die afore he gits rid of your money. But I do say you’ll make him happy NOW; and, ez I reckon you’re about ez badly stuck after that chap ez I ever saw any woman, you won’t be hurtin’ your own feelin’s either.”

The blood left Peg’s face as she looked up. “But that’s WHY I can’t give him the money–and he won’t marry me without it.”

Mr. Hamlin’s hand dropped from the last button of his waistcoat. “Can’t–give–him–the–money?” he repeated slowly.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because–because I LOVE him.”

Mr. Hamlin rebuttoned his waistcoat, and sat down patiently on the bed. Peg arose, and awkwardly drew the portmanteau a little nearer to him.

“When Jim Byways left me this yer property,” she began, looking cautiously around, “he left it to me on CONDITIONS; not conditions ez waz in his WRITTEN will, but conditions ez waz SPOKEN. A promise I made him in this very room, Mr. Hamlin,–this very room, and on that very bed you’re sittin’ on, in which he died.”