"But if I drag yonder fair lady down from her high, estate, you would scarcely care if I were the foul fiend in person," said Carrington, looking at his friend with a sardonic smile. "Oh, I think I know you, Reginald Eversleigh, better than you know me."
* * * * *
Amongst the guests who had arrived at the castle within the last few days was Lydia Graham, the young lady of whom the baronet had spoken to his nephew. She was a fascinating girl, with a bold, handsome face, brilliant gray eyes, an aquiline nose, and a profusion of dark, waving hair. She was a woman who knew how to make the most of every charm with which nature had endowed her. She dressed superbly; but with an extravagance far beyond the limits of her means. She was, for this reason, deeply in debt, and her only chance of extrication from her difficulties lay in a brilliant marriage.
For nearly nine years she had been trying to make this brilliant marriage. She had "come out," as the phrase goes, at seventeen, and she was now nine-and-twenty.
During that period she had been wooed and flattered by troops of admirers. She had revelled in flirtations; she had triumphed in the power of her beauty; but she had known more than one disappointment of her fairest hopes, and she had not won the prize in the great lottery of fashionable life—a wealthy and patrician husband.
Her nine-and-twentieth birthday had passed; and contemplating herself earnestly in her glass, she was fain to confess that something of the brilliancy of her beauty had faded.
"I am getting wan and sallow," she said to herself; "what is to become of me if I do not marry?"
The prospect was indeed a sorry one.
Lydia Graham possessed an income of two hundred a year, inherited from her mother: but such an income was the merest pittance for a young lady with Miss Graham's tastes. Her brother was a captain of an expensive regiment, selfish and extravagant, and by no means inclined to open his purse for his sister's benefit.
She had no home; but lived sometimes with one wealthy relation, sometimes with another—always admired, always elegantly dressed; but not always happy.