Let us give the poor profligate wretch credit for getting even so far as this. There was no attempt to gloss over the facts, and deceive himself. He put the whole matter honestly before him.
He would be a fool if he told Lord Saltire. He would be worse than a fool, a madman—there was no doubt about that. It was not to be thought about.
But Charles Ravenshoe!
How pale the dear old lad looked. What a kind, gentle old face it was. How well he could remember the first time he ever saw him. At Twyford, yes; and, that very same visit, how he ran across the billiard-room, and asked him who Lord Saltire was. Yes. What jolly times there were down in Devonshire, too. Those Claycomb hounds wanted pace, but they were full fast enough for the country. And what a pottering old rascal Charley was among the stone walls. Rode through. Yes. And how he'd mow over a woodcock. Fire slap through a holly bush. Ha!
And suppose they proved this previous marriage. Why, then he would be back at Ravenshoe, and all things would be as they were. But suppose they couldn't——
Lord Ascot did not know that eighty thousand pounds were secured to Charles.
By Gad! it was horrible to think of. That it should be thrown on him, of all men, to stand between old Charley and his due. If it were any other man but him——
Reader, if you do not know that a man will act from "sentiment" long, long years after he has thrown "principle" to the winds, you had better pack up your portmanteau, and go and live five years or more among Australian convicts and American rowdies, as a friend of mine did. The one long outlives the other. The incarnate devils who beat out poor Price's brains with their shovels, when they had the gallows before them, consistently perjured themselves in favour of the youngest of the seven, the young fiend who had hounded them on.
Why there never was such a good fellow as that Charley. That Easter vacation—hey! Among the bargees, hang it, what a game it was——I won't follow out his recollections here any further. Skittle-playing and fighting are all very well; but one may have too much of them.
"I might still do this," thought Lord Ascot: "I might——"