Isaac List emergeS the winner of the card game. Nell’s purse is empty. The grandfather keeps poring over the cards after the others get up. Nell tells him that it is near midnight. He laments that if the game had only went on longer, he would have prevailed. Nell tells him to forget about it. He tells her they can’t forget it. The only way they will ever gain back their wealth is if they keep trying to win it back. They are due to win eventually.
Because it is very late and still storming, Nell is loathed to return home and wake Mrs. Jarley—even though she wants to be gone from this place. She asks the landlord how much it would cost to rent a room. The grandfather is angry when he realizes she had kept some money aside, for that could have made the difference in the card game.
Nell waits until she gets the landlord alone and asks him to exchange the gold piece. Groves is curious about where she got it, but he figures it is none of his business. Nell notices a shadow at the door and thinks she is being watched. When she returns to the other room, everyone is where she had left them last. The grandfather denies that anyone left.
A servant girl shows Nell and the grandfather to their rooms. She complains to Nell that she doesn’t like her place of employment. The men are crooks. She also talks about her sweetheart, who went off to war.
The girl’s misgiving about the men at the Valiant Soldier increases Nell’s unease. She had dismissed the feeling of being watched as fancy, but she is doubtful. She grieves over the bad luck in coming to this place and re-awakening her grandfather’s vice. Will it matter when they leave?
She wakes up in the middle of the night to see a figure in her room. She is too terrified to scream. The figure steals the money and exits. Nell stealthily follows. The figure enters her grandfather’s room, and Nell fears that the person will murder her grandfather. She peeks through the partially opened door and is stunned to see that her grandfather is the only person in the room—and he is counting the money that he had just stolen from her.