The Gambler: A Novel

An eight-mile drive over rain-washed Irish roads in the quick-falling dusk of autumn is an experience trying to the patience, even to the temper, of the average Saxon. Yet James...

To English ears the reply was curious. Yet with all its vagueness, all its racial inclination towards high colour, it held the germ of truth that frequently lies in such utteran...

A wash, a change of clothes, and a half-hour of solitude had done much for Milbanke. He felt more normal, less alienated by unfamiliar surroundings than he had done in the first...

The unpleasant sensation of moving in the dark remained with Milbanke while Asshlin, still noisily excited, arranged the stakes, cut for the deal, and, having won the cut, distr...

Thus it was that James Milbanke entered on his first night at Orristown. The surprise, the excitement, and the culminating incident of the evening would have been disturbing to...

Without ceremony or apology Clodagh led Milbanke to the stables by the shortest route, which entailed the traversing of several long and windy passages and the crossing of the g...

An hour after the race, Milbanke, standing at his bedroom window, caught a glimpse of Larry riding slowly across the fields towards the avenue with the evidently unwilling Mick...

It would be futile to deny that the unexpected sound of Asshlin's voice brought a tremor to the mind of his guest. It is disconcerting to the most valiant to be confronted with...

It was on a windy March morning three years after his summarily ended visit to Ireland, that James Milbanke stood in the bedroom of his London flat. A perturbed frown puckered h...

With a strange blending of curiosity and shrinking, Milbanke obeyed the pressure of Clodagh's hand, and moved forward into the room. The cold March daylight was partly excluded...

Asshlin scarcely spoke again during the early portion of that day. The immense effort of his explanation to Milbanke left him correspondingly weak; though through all his exhaus...

To the last day of his life, that evening, with its horde of harassing and unfamiliar sensations, remained stamped upon Milbanke's mind; and not least among the unpleasant recol...

To Irishmen of every class, a funeral is invested with an almost symbolic importance, and a solemn consideration is bestowed upon its most minute details. And Milbanke, deeply i...

It may be surmised without fear of misconception that never during the smooth course of his uneventful existence had Milbanke been so rudely shaken into self-comprehension as by...

And thus it came about that Clodagh Asshlin entered upon a new phase of that precarious condition that we call life. The impulse that had induced her to accept Milbanke's propos...

Next morning she woke calmed and soothed by her outburst of the night before; and after breakfast she was able to enter into the primary discussion concerning her marriage witho...

It was nine o'clock on a morning four years after the wedding at Carrigmore; the season was late spring; the scene was Italy; and Florence--the city of tranquillity made manifes...

Clodagh's manner was careless and her gait nonchalant as she rose from table and crossed the terrace followed by her dog; but inwardly she burned with a newly kindled sense of a...

Clodagh looked up, colouring afresh; and the young man bowed quickly and eagerly. He belonged to a type new to her, but familiar to every social Londoner: the type of young Engl...

"If you can waive your prejudices against the milk baths, Mrs. Milbanke," he said, "you'll find old Deerehurst quite a delightful person. But, of course, when one is very young,...

The decision was no sooner made, than it was carried into execution. The order was given to the gondoliers, and instantly the long dark gondola swung round, disengaging itself f...

"How ridiculous of you to expect Mrs. Milbanke to read your riddles!" she said sharply. "The person this very disrespectful young man is speaking of, Mrs. Milbanke, is Sir Walte...

During the night that followed, Clodagh's excited thoughts scarcely permitted her to sleep; but with that extraordinary reserve of strength that springs from the combination of...

This little incident--this small and yet significant interlude--in Clodagh's day of new-born freedom, possessed a weight and an importance all its own. It is quite possible that...

To the superficial student of Clodagh's character, this development of a phase in her mental growth may present itself as something distasteful--even unworthy; but to the seriou...

The next day Clodagh made one of a party to the Lido, and the same night accompanied Lady Frances Hope, Deerehurst, and Serracauld to a theatre; but on neither occasion did she...

She changed her dress with an almost feverish haste, giving herself no time for thought; and then, scarcely waiting to take a final look into the mirror, left the room and hurri...

At nine o'clock on the night following her first venture in the world of gambling, Clodagh was again standing by the roulette-table in Lady Frances Hope's salon. She had been pl...

The penetrating Florentine sunshine was enveloping the villa that stood upon the hill above San Domenico; but it was not the full, warm sunshine of late April that had opened th...

Exactly one week later Clodagh arrived in Paris on her way to England. Simonetta Ottolenghi--an Italian woman, who had been in her service as maid for nearly four years--was her...

It was in the middle of February that Clodagh arrived in Paris on her journey home; and it was the end of April before that ardently planned return to England at last took place.

Again she chose a hansom as a means of conveyance, for as yet there had been no question of her procuring a carriage of her own; and again she became conscious of the peculiar s...

On a certain morning in the last week in June, Lady Frances Hope rode into the courtyard of the Knightsbridge flats. Throwing her bridle to the man-servant who was attending her...

The habit of self-deception had become as a cloak in which Clodagh wrapped herself. She desired happiness: therefore she told herself that she was happy; she instinctively wishe...

The remaining hours of that night passed like a dream for Clodagh. Condemn herself as she might for the weakness, there was no subduing the tumultuous excitement kindled by the...

At lunch time Clodagh sent word to Lady Diana Tuffnell that the long ride in the morning sun had given her a headache, and that she would be glad of a few hours' rest.

At eleven o'clock on July the fourth, Nance was to arrive at Tuffnell. Her boat reached Liverpool on the third; but it had been arranged that she was to spend the night on board...

When Nance had spoken of her engagement, her unselfish joy and relief in the security it promised had aroused a renewed desire for self-sacrifice, as represented by confession o...

Action--decisive action--always brings relief. An hour after it had come into her possession, Clodagh had dispatched Deerehurst's cheque to her bankers in London; and when, at s...

Her only tangible sensations were anger and self-contempt. The thought that Serracauld, who had seemed less than nothing in the scheme of her life--Serracauld, with whom she had...

The season was long since dead; the fashionable world had betaken itself to its customary haunts; London had, in the eyes of society, become intolerable; and yet it seemed to he...

The fragmentary quarrel between the sisters was very suggestive. Nance's anger, and Clodagh's irritable repudiation of her advice, had each been fraught with its own significanc...

The next morning Clodagh rose imbued with new decision. During Gore's absence, things had worn a vague, even an impersonal aspect; for, like all her countrywomen, she possessed...

As the horse sped away in the direction of her home, she sat almost motionless, her only gesture being to lift her hands to her eyes from time to time, as if to shut out some ne...

It was eleven o'clock on the day following when Clodagh's train steamed into the little station of Muskeere. Her boat had arrived in Cork in the early hours of the morning; but...

Late on the afternoon that followed her arrival, Clodagh--with Larry in attendance--climbed up the uneven path that led from the Orristown boat-cove to the house. A considerable...

Almost at the same hour that Clodagh sat down to play cards with Laurence Asshlin at Orristown, Nance was seated with Daisy Estcoit in the lounge of the Carlton. After her siste...

Early on the morning that followed the storm, Clodagh stepped from the hall door of Orristown. As she stood on the gravelled pathway in the clear, strong daylight, she looked li...