I have carefully avoided describing Lord Leycester Wyndward as a "good" man. If to be generous, single-minded, impatient of wrong and pitiful of the wronged; if to be blessed, cursed with the capacity for loving madly and passionately¹; if to be without fear, either moral or physical, be heroic, then he was a hero; but I am afraid it cannot be said that he was "good."

Before many weeks had elapsed since his parting with Stella, the world had decided² that he was indeed very bad. It is scarcely too much to say that his name was the red rag which was flourished in the eyes of those righteous, indignant bulls whose mission in life it is to talk over their fellow-creatures' ill deeds and worry them.

One mad exploit after another was connected with his name, and it soon came to pass that no desperate thing was done within the circle of the higher class, but he was credited with being the ringleader, or at least with having a hand in it.

It was said that at that select and notorious club, "The Rookery," Lord Leycester was the most desperate of gamblers and persistent³ of losers. Rumor⁴ went so far as to declare that even the Wyndward estates could not stand the inroads which his[227] losses at the gaming table were making. It was rumored⁵, and not contradicted, that he had "plunged⁶" on the turf, and that his stud was one of the largest and most expensive in England.

The society papers were full of insinuating⁷ paragraphs hinting at the wildness of his career, and prophesying⁸ its speedy and disastrous⁹ termination. He was compared with the lost characters of past generations—likened to Lord Norbury, the Marquis of Waterford, and similar dissipated individuals. His handsome face and tall, thin, but still stalwart figure, had become famous, and people nudged each other and

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