[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
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 passionately; 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 decided 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 persistent of losers. Rumor went so far as to declare that even the Wyndward estates could not stand the inroads which his losses at the gaming table were making. It was rumored, and not contradicted, that he had "plunged" on the turf, and that his stud was one of the largest and most expensive in England.
The society papers were full of insinuating paragraphs hinting at the wildness of his career, and prophesying its speedy and disastrous 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 pointed him out when he passed along the fashionably-frequented thoroughfares.
His rare appearance in the haunts of society occasioned the deepest interest and curiosity.
One enterprising photographer had managed, by the exercise of vast ingenuity, to procure his likeness, and displayed copies in his window; but they were speedily and promptly withdrawn.
There was no reckless hardihood with which he was not credited. Men were proud of possessing a horse that he had ridden, because their capability of riding it proved their courage.
Scandal seized upon his name and made a hearty and never-ending meal of it; and yet, by some strange phenomenal chance, no one heard it connected with that of a woman.