"He took more to Frank than he did to me, though he said that he greatly resembled his rascally father. He was a handsome dashing boy, with the same winning popular manners that had contributed to the ruin of Colonel Fitzmorris. Fond of money, but only with the intent to spend it, from a child he paid great court to his wealthy grandfather, in the hope of becoming heir to the immense private fortune he had the power to bestow. In this fortune hunting, Edward Fitzmorris, the present Earl, was quite as much interested as my brother, but he pursued his object with a great deal more tact. The Fitzmorrises, though an old family, and highly connected, were not a wealthy family, and Captain Fitzmorris was a younger son, with little more to depend upon than a very handsome person, and his commission in the army.
"He watched us lads with a very jealous eye, giving us very little cause to regard him with affection. He was many years our senior, his father having married early, and ours late in life—in fact, he was a man, when we were noisy boys, not yet in our teens. It was only during the holidays that we ever met, as we were sent to Eton and then to college.
"It is of no use to tell you, Dorothy, of all the thoughts and follies, which too often mark a schoolboy's and a student's life. Suffice it to say that your grave Gerard was no better than the rest. A more frolicsome mischievous imp, never drew the breath of life, always in trouble and difficulties of some sort or another, and when at Oxford, the most daring leader of the wildest and most reckless set of young fellows that ever threw away fortune, health and respectability, at that famous seat of learning. How little I thought of religion in those days, still less of ever mounting a pulpit, or teaching the poor and ignorant.
"At twenty-one, I received from my grandfather a cadetship for India and went out as a soldier, to fight under the present Lord Wellington, who was then Sir Arthur Wellesley.
"You start, Dorothy. Your future husband a soldier! It is pleasant to read your astonishment in those large wondering eyes. I bear the marks of some hot service too, in sundry ugly scars which I regarded as badges of honour in those world-loving days. It was while suffering severely from one of these wounds, that I was sent home, to see if my native air could restore me to health.
"Before leaving India, I determined, if possible, to obtain an interview with my mother. I had never met her husband, though I had eagerly sought an opportunity to revenge upon him the death of my father.
"My mother, I found, had been dead several months, and her husband had been appointed to command a division in Spain. I was terribly disappointed that I could not shoot this man, who had been the best and kindest of husbands to the woman he had led astray from the path of duty, and was reported as almost inconsolable for her loss.
"When I returned to England, great changes had taken place. My grandfather was dead. My cousin Sir Thomas was likewise dead, and the present Earl, who had been for some years a widower, had come in for the title, and all the immense private fortune belonging to his grandfather.