Excerpt: ...I know not how much money was extorted and paid on this unluckly emerald: but it was the cause of the ruin of us all. One night we were keeping our table as usual at the Countess of Liliengarten's, and Magny being in cash somehow, kept drawing out rouleau after rouleau, and playing with his common ill success. In the middle of the play a note was brought into him, which he read, and turned very pale on perusing; but the luck was against him, and looking up rather anxiously at the clock, he waited for a few more turns of the cards, when having, I suppose, lost his last rouleau, he got up with a wild oath that scared some of the polite company assembled, and left the room. A great trampling of horses was heard without; but we were too much engaged with our business to heed the noise, and continued our play. Presently some one came into the play-room and said to the Countess, 'Here is a strange story! A Jew has been murdered in the Kaiserwald. Magny was arrested when he went out of the room.' All the party broke up on hearing this strange news, and we shut up our bank for the night. Magny had been sitting by me during the play (my uncle dealt and I paid and took the money), and, looking under the chair, there was a crumpled paper, which I took up and read. It was that which had been delivered to him, and ran thus: - 'If you have done it, take the orderly's horse who brings this. It is the best of my stable. There are a hundred louis in each holster, and the pistols are loaded. Either course lies open to you if you know what I mean. In a quarter of an hour I shall know our fate- whether I am to be dishonoured and survive you, whether you are guilty and a coward, or whether you are still worthy of the name of 'M.' This was in the handwriting of the old General de Magny; and my uncle and I, as we walked home at night, having made and divided with the Countess Liliengarten no inconsiderable profits that night, felt our triumphs greatly dashed by the...