could she prevent Mrs. Finn from going at once to the
Duke and telling him everything, she consented. Under Mrs. Finn's
directions she wrote a note to her lover, which Mrs. Finn saw,
and then undertook to send it, with a letter from herself, to Mr.
Tregear's address in London. The note was very short, and was indeed
dictated by the elder lady, with some dispute, however, as to certain
terms, in which the younger lady had her way. It was as follows:

DEAREST FRANK,

I wish you to see Mrs. Finn, who, as you know, was dear
mamma's most particular friend. Please go to her, as she
will ask you to do. When you hear what she says I think
you ought to do what she advises.

Yours for ever and always,

M. P.

This Mrs. Finn sent enclosed in an envelope, with a few words from
herself, asking the gentleman to call upon her in Park Lane, on a day
and at an hour fixed.

CHAPTER III

Francis Oliphant Tregear

Mr. Francis Oliphant Tregear was a young man who might not improbably
make a figure in the world, should circumstances be kind to him,
but as to whom it might be doubted whether circumstances would be
sufficiently kind to enable him to use serviceably his unquestionable
talents and great personal gifts. He had taught himself to regard
himself as a young English gentleman of the first water, qualified
by his birth and position to live with all that was most noble and
most elegant; and he could have lived in that sphere naturally
and gracefully were it not that the part of the "sphere" which he
specially affected requires wealth as well as birth and intellect.
Wealth he had not, and yet he did not abandon the sphere. As a
consequence of all this, it was possible that the predictions of his
friends as to that figure which he was to make in the world might be
disappointed.

He had been educated at Eton, from whence he had been sent to Christ
Church; and both at school and at college had been the most intimate
friend of the son and heir of a great and wealthy duke. He and Lord
Silverbridge had been always together, and they who were interested
in the career of the young nobleman had generally thought he had
chosen his friend well. Tregear had gone out in honours, having
been a second-class man. His friend Silverbridge, we know, had been
allowed to take no degree at all; but the terrible practical joke
by which the whole front of the Dean's house had been coloured
scarlet in the middle of