new ones still repeated, such persons as
concerned themselves with matters of reputation either through conscience
or policy, began to speak of him with less of warmth or leniency.

"'Tis not well for a matron with daughters to marry and with sons to keep
an eye to," it was said, "to have in her household too often a young
gentleman who has squandered his fortune in dice and drink and wild
living, and who 'twas known was cast off by a reputable young lady of
fortune."

So there were fine ladies who began to avoid him, and those in power at
Court and in the world who regarded him with lessening favour day by day!
In truth, he had such debts, and his creditors pressed him so
ceaselessly, that even had the world's favour continued, his life must
have changed its aspect greatly. His lodgings were no longer the most
luxurious in the fashionable part of the town, his brocades and laces
were no longer of the richest, nor his habit of the very latest and most
modish cut; he had no more an equipage attracting every eye as he drove
forth, nor a gentleman's gentleman whose swagger and pomp outdid that of
all others in his world. Soon after the breaking of his marriage with
the heiress, his mother had died, and his relatives being few, and those
of an order strictly averse to the habits of ill-provided and extravagant
kinsmen, he had but few family ties. Other ties he had, 'twas true, but
they were not such as were accounted legal or worthy of attention either
by himself or those related to him.

So it befell that when my Lady Dunstanwolde's lacquey could not find him
at his lodgings, and as the days went past neither his landlady nor his
creditors beheld him again, his absence from the scene was not considered
unaccountable by them, nor did it attract the notice it would have done
in times gone by.

"He hath made his way out of England to escape us," said the angry
tailors and mercers--who had besieged his door in vain for months, and
who were now infuriated at the thought of their own easiness and the
impudent gay airs which had befooled them. "A good four hundred pounds
of mine hath he carried with him," said one. "And two hundred of mine!"
"And more of mine, since I am a poor man to whom a pound means twenty
guineas!" "We are all robbed, and he has cheated the debtors' prison,
wherein, if we had not been fools, he would have been clapped six months
ago."

"Think ye he will not come back, gentlemen?" quavered his lan