r once. He
uttered no word; but he grew pale as death, and staggered as if about to
fall. A moment later, however, he had pulled himself together and was
helping Lady Aylesbury to count her small losses. "Tell me how I stand,"
asked her ladyship, as she placed her betting-book in his hand. The
Marquess made the necessary calculation; and with a smile of sympathy,
answered: "You have lost L23." And he, who could thus calmly calculate
so trifling a loss, was L50,000 poorer by his filly's failure to win the
Plate!

He knew well that he was a ruined man--worse than this, unutterably
galling to his proud spirit--he knew that he was a disgraced man. His
vast fortune had crumbled away until he had not L50,000 in the world to
pay this last debt of honour. And yet he continued to smile in the face
of ruin, carrying through this crowning disaster the brave heart of an
English gentleman and a sportsman.

He sold the last of his remaining acres, his hunters and hounds, and
all his personal belongings; and all the money he could raise from the
wreckage of his fortune was a pitiful L10,000. His last sovereign was
gone, and he was L40,000 in debt, without a hope of paying it. When he
next appeared on a race-course the very men who had cheered him to the
echo at Ascot greeted him with jeers and angry shouts at Epsom. The hero
of the Turf, the idol of the Ring, was that blackest of black sheep, a
defaulter!

And not only was he thus branded as a defaulter. Strange stories were
being circulated to his further discredit as a sportsman. The running of
Lady Elizabeth in one race was, it was said, more than open to
suspicion. The Earl, who was considered a certainty for the Derby, was
unaccountably scratched on the very evening before the race, though the
Marquess stood to win L35,000 by her, and did not hedge the stake-money.

The public indignation at these discreditable incidents found a vent in
the columns of the _Times_; and although Lord Hastings denied that there
was "one single circumstance mentioned as regards the two horses,
correctly stated," and offered a frank explanation in both cases, the
public refused to be appeased, and the stigma remained.

So overwhelmed was he by this combination of assaults on his fortune and
his good name that his health--undermined no doubt by excesses--broke
down. He spent the summer months of 1868 in his yacht, cruising among
the northern seas in search of health; but no sea-breezes could bring