se is in an uproar, in the midst
of which Lady Devine appears, and looks down upon the scene. Rex catches
sight of her; and bursts into blasphemy. She withdraws, strangely
terrified; and the animal, torn, bloody, and blasphemous, is at last
got into his own apartments, the groom, whose face had been seriously
damaged in the encounter, bestowing a hearty kick on the prostrate
carcase at parting.

The next morning Lady Devine declined to see her son, though he sent a
special apology to her.

"I am afraid I was a little overcome by wine last night," said he to
Tomkins. "Well, you was, sir," said Tomkins.

"A very little wine makes me quite ill, Tomkins. Did I do anything very
violent?"

"You was rather obstropolous, Mr. Richard."

"Here's a sovereign for you, Tomkins. Did I say anything?"

"You cussed a good deal, Mr. Richard. Most gents do when they've
bin--hum--dining out, Mr. Richard."

"What a fool I am," thought John Rex, as he dressed. "I shall spoil
everything if I don't take care." He was right. He was going the right
way to spoil everything. However, for this bout he made amends--money
soothed the servants' hall, and apologies and time won Lady Devine's
forgiveness.

"I cannot yet conform to English habits, my dear mother," said Rex, "and
feel at times out of place in your quiet home. I think that--if you can
spare me a little money--I should like to travel."

Lady Devine--with a sense of relief for which she blamed
herself--assented, and supplied with letters of credit, John Rex went to
Paris.

Fairly started in the world of dissipation and excess, he began to grow
reckless. When a young man, he had been singularly free from the vice of
drunkenness; turning his sobriety--as he did all his virtues--to vicious
account; but he had learnt to drink deep in the loneliness of the bush.
Master of a large sum of money, he had intended to spend it as he would
have spent it in his younger days. He had forgotten that since his death
and burial the world had not grown younger. It was possible that Mr.
Lionel Crofton might have discovered some of the old set of fools
and knaves with whom he had once mixed. Many of them were alive and
flourishing. Mr. Lemoine, for instance, was respectably married in his
native island of Jersey, and had already threatened to disinherit a
nephew who showed a tendency to dissipation.

But Mr. Lemoine would not care to recognize Mr. Lionel Crofton, the
gambler and rake, in his prope