r in exile, and
arrogating unto itself the power to place such minors under the
tutelage of persons whose loyalty to the Commonwealth was undoubted, Sir
Marmaduke bethought himself of applying for one of these official
guardianships which were known to be very lucrative and moreover,
practically sinecures.

Fate for once favored him; a half-contemptuous desire to do something
for this out-at-elbows Kentish squire who had certainly been a loyal
adherent of the Commonwealth, caused my Lord Protector to favor his
application. The rich daughter of the Marquis of Dover was placed under
the guardianship of Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse with an allowance of
L4,000 a year for her maintenance, until she came of age. A handsome
fortune and stroke of good luck for a wise and prudent man:--a drop in
an ocean of debts, difficulties and expensive tastes, in the case of Sir
Marmaduke.

A prolonged visit to London with a view either of gaining a foothold in
the new Court, or of drawing the attention of the malcontents, of Monk
and his party, or even of the Royalists, to himself, resulted in further
debts, in more mortgages, more bitter disappointments.

The man himself did not please. His personality was unsympathetic; Lady
Sue's money which he now lavished right and left, bought neither
friendship nor confidence. He joined all the secret clubs which in
defiance of Cromwell's rigid laws against betting and gambling, were the
resort of all the smart gentlemen in the town. Ill-luck at hazard and
dice pursued him: he was a bad loser, quarrelsome and surly. His
ambition had not taught him the salutary lesson of how to make friends
in order to attain his desires.

His second return to the ancestral home was scarcely less disastrous
than the first; a mortgage on his revenues as guardian of Lady Sue
Aldmarshe just saved him this time from the pursuit of his creditors,
and this mortgage he had only obtained through false statements as to
his ward's age.

As he told his sister-in-law a moment ago, he was at his last gasp. He
had perhaps just begun to realize that he would never succeed through
the force of his own individuality. Therefore, money had become a still
more imperative necessity to him. He was past forty now. Disappointed
ambition and an ever rebellious spirit had left severe imprints on his
face: his figure was growing heavy, his prominent lips, unadorned by a
mustache, had an unpleasant downward droop, and lately he had even
not