gone at once, mamma. How can you be sure in so short a time? It is not a week since you wrote to me."
"The first news came much earlier, dear. But I would not spoil your pleasure till it was quite necessary."
"Oh how vexatious!" said Gwendolen, colouring with fresh anger. "If I had known, I could have brought home the money I had won; and for want of knowing, I stayed and lost it. I had nearly two hundred pounds, and it would have done for us to live on a little while, till I could carry out some plan." She paused an instant and then added more impetuously, "Everything has gone against me. People have come near me only to blight me."
Among the "people" she was including Deronda. If he had not interfered in her life she would have gone to the gaming-table again with a few napoleons, and might have won back her losses.
"We must resign ourselves to the will of Providence, my child," said poor Mrs Davilow, startled by this revelation of the gambling, but not daring to say more. She felt sure that "people" meant Grandcourt, about whom her lips were sealed. And Gwendolen answered immediately—
"But I don't resign myself. I shall do what I
