I consent, upon my own responsibility,” he said.
Thank you,” said Mrs. Middleton, with real gratitude.
She would not lose the man she loved after all.
A month later the marriage of Capt. Gregory Lovell, of her majesty’s service, and Mrs. Harvey Middleton, of Middleton Hall, was celebrated. There was a long paragraph in the morning Post, and Mrs. Lovell was happy.
When, a week later, at Paris, the gallant captain was informed of the trick that had been played upon him, there was a terrible scene. He cursed his wife, and threatened to leave her.
But, Gregory, I have three hundred pounds income,” she pleaded. “We can live abroad.”
“And I have sold myself for that paltry sum!” he said, bitterly.
But he concluded to make the best of a bad bargain. Between them they had an income of five hundred pounds, and on this they made shift abroad, where living is cheap. But the marriage was not happy. He was brutal at times, and his wife realized sadly that he had never loved her. But she has all the happiness she deserves, and so has he.
Rudolph drank himself to death in six months. So the income which he was to receive made but a slight draft upon the Middleton estate.
And Tony! No longer Tony the Tramp, but the Hon. Anthony Middleton, of Middleton Hall—he has just completed a course at Oxford, and is now the possessor of an education which will help fit him for the responsibilities he is to assume. His frank, off-hand manner makes him an immense favorite with the circle to which he now belongs. He says little of his early history, and it is seldom thought of now. He has made a promise to his good friend, George Spencer, to visit the United States this year, and will doubtless do so. He means at that time to visit once more the scenes with which he became familiar when he was only Tony the Tramp.