“Clare,” said Chance, not bitterly.

Clare Henderson had done well for herself. The ruined fortunes of her family had been well recouped by judicious marriage. She was now the wife of a congressman from Virginia.

Beautiful, pale, black-haired Clare.

“Most likely,” said Grawson.

Chance watched the smoke from Grawson’s cigar, and the massive movements of the heavy jaw.

Grawson leaned to the table again, and sent another ball gliding smoothly across the felt and into the darkness of the pocket.

Again and again he shot, not missing.

Chance admired skill. He himself had skilled hands. He admired the work of carpenters, of ironworkers, carvers, saloon painters, the men who could handle ten-horse teams, the men who could use a rifle or a handgun well, and he admired Grawson, and the game was slowly taken from him, shot by shot.

Grawson stood up.

He replaced his cue in the rack.

“You’ve lost,” said Grawson.

Chance put his own cue back in the rack.

“You’re taking me back to Charleston to stand trial?” said Chance.

Grawson’s left eye trembled, and the lid flickered.

“Yes,” he said.

“May I see the warrant for my arrest?” asked Chance.

“It’s in the hotel,” said Grawson. “The warrant is my business.”

Grawson reached into his wallet again and placed a silver star on the green felt.

“This is warrant enough,” said Grawson.

Chance looked at the badge, the silver detective’s star, Charleston of the Sovereign State of South Carolina. Grawson replaced the star in his wallet.

“I don’t mind if you make trouble,” he said, smiling, dabbing the ashes from the cigar on the felt on the table, “but I would not advise it.”

“I don’t want any trouble,” said Chance, and he had spoken truly, for he was tired and now overcome with the shock, numb with the shock of being found. And now medicine, and himself, everything was finished, everything but the ride on the train, the formalities that would satisfy justice and the last climb, thirteen steps to the scaffold.