The smile seemed to die from her lips; it appeared, indeed, to pass with all else of expression from her face.

The plaques dropped one by one through her fingers, into the satchel.

Her eyes remained fixed upon him as though she were looking upon a ghost.

The seconds seemed drawn out into a grim hiatus of time.

The croupier's voice, the muttered imprecation of a loser by her side, the necessity of making some slight movement in order to allow the passage of an arm from some one in search of change--some such trifle at last brought her back from the shadows.