The watch struck twelve, and stopped its silvery chiming.

They both sat down, looking at each other, the light of an enormous
chance in their eyes, the tragedy of a great stake in their clinched
hands; but the deeper, intenser power was in the face of Dubarre, the
explorer.

There was more than power; malice drew down the brows and curled the
sensitive upper lip. Each man watched the other for knowledge of his own
fate. The glasses lay straggling along the table, emptied of death and
life.

All at once a horrible pallor spread over the face of Villiard, and his
head jerked forward. He grasped the table with both hands, twitching and
trembling. His eyes stared wildly at Dubarre, to whose face the flush of
wine had come, whose look was now maliciously triumphant.

Villiard had drunk both glasses of the poison!

"I win!" Dubarre stood up. Then, leaning over the table towards the
dying man, he added: "You let her die-well! Would you know the truth?
She loved you--always."

Villiard gasped, and his look wandered vaguely along the opposite wall.

Dubarre went on. "I played the game with you honestly, because--because
it was the greatest man could play. And I, too, sinned against her. Now
die! She loved you--murderer!"