Netta did not stop to consider Howel's real reasons for leaving the country, or imagine for a moment that a man of his, to her, inexhaustible resources, could be induced to do so because he found those resources were not inexhaustible. Neither did she remember that in London he would be in the midst of the gamblers, horse-racers, and spendthrifts who had been helping him to diminish his father's ill-gotten gains, before and since, he came into possession of them.
During the remainder of his stay in the county, his house was open to sportsmen of every grade. His racers, hunters, hounds, and good dinners were points of union to all the sporting men of the county; and Captain Dancy, Mr Deep, Sir Samuel Spendall, the Simpsons, Madame Duvet, and many others, again adorned Plas Abertewey. Races and race-balls, steeple-chases, and steeple-chase balls, hunts, and hunt-balls, took Howel, Netta, and his friends from place to place, and he and his horses soon became celebrated. The latter ran at all the races. He was a good rider, and rode himself in several steeple-chases; in short, he was declared to be 'a capital fellow!' and one who, if he would only remain in the county, would raise the sporting interest throughout it. As 'blessings brighten as they take their flight,' so Howel's popularity reached its zenith just as he resigned Abertewey to Colonel Vaughan, and went, with his wife and child, abroad for a few months.
As Freda foretold, bells rang, bonfires blazed, and cannons fired, when the respective owners of Glanyravon and Abertewey brought home their respective brides, which took place in due course. If anybody thought of Miss Gwynne, it was to comment loudly on her conduct in leaving her home, because her father chose to marry again, and lowering herself and her position by going to reside with her former governess, the wife of a curate in the East End of London. Some few sympathised with her, but the greater number laughed at Mr Gwynne, admired Lady Nugent's tact, and blamed Freda.
Those, also, who discussed Colonel Vaughan, as everybody did, thought him a wise man to marry a woman who could at once clear his estate, and enable him to live upon it as his fathers had never lived before him, and welcomed him home with great ardour, and a regular volley of dinner parties.
Thus Lady Mary Nugent and her daughter, with their various worldly and external advantages, and Colonel Vaughan, with his savoir faire, had done more for themselves than Freda or Gladys, or Owen or Rowland could have done, with their honesty of purpose, beauty, and intelligence, in a worldly point of view, I would be understood to mean.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE SPENDTHRIFT.
We must now run rapidly through the next six years of Howel and Netta's career.
After spending nearly a year abroad, where Howel amused himself, in addition, to his usual diversions, by speculating in some German mines, they came back to England. They went for a time to Spendall Lodge in Yorkshire, on a visit to Sir Samuel Spendall, in order to be in the vicinity of the Doncaster races. Thence they went to Scarborough, where Howel left Netta, her child and maid in a lodging, whilst he attended the various races in other parts of the country.