t have trusted that you would have treated her
well, had it not been that Mr. Annesley has gained such a hold upon her
affections. She is wilful, as you are, and I cannot bend her. It has
been the longing of my heart that you two should live together at
Tretton. But such longings are, I think, wicked, and are seldom
realized.

"I write now just this one line to tell you that it is all settled. I
have not been strong enough to prevent such settling. He talks of three
months! But what does it matter? Three months or three years will be the
same to you, and nearly the same to me.

"Your affectionate aunt,

"SARAH MOUNTJOY.

"P.S.--May I as your loving aunt add one word of passionate entreaty?
All Tretton is yours now, and the honor of Tretton is within your
keeping. Do not go back to those wretched tables!"

Mountjoy Scarborough when he received this letter cannot be said to have
been made unhappy by it, because he had already known all his
unhappiness. But he turned it in his mind as though to think what would
now be the best course of life open to him. And he did think that he had
better go back to those tables against which his aunt had warned him,
and there remain till he had made the acres of Tretton utterly
disappear. There was nothing for him which seemed to be better. And here
at home in England even that would at present be impossible to him. He
could not enter the clubs, and elsewhere Samuel Hart would be ever at
his heels. And there was his brother with his lawsuit, though on that
matter a compromise had already been offered to him. Augustus had
proposed to him by his lawyer to share Tretton. He would never share
Tretton. His brother should have an income secured to him, but he would
keep Tretton in his own hands,--as long as the gambling-tables would
allow him.

He was, in truth, a wretched man, as on that night he did make up his
mind, and ringing his bell called his servant out of his bed to bid him
prepare everything for a sudden start. He would leave Tretton on the
following day, or on the day after, and intended at once to go abroad.
"He is off for that place nigh to Italy where they have the
gambling-tables," said the butler, on the following morning, to the
valet who declared his master's intentions.

"I shouldn't wonder, Mr. Stokes," said the valet. "I'm told it's a
beauteous country and I should like to see a little of that sort of
life myself." Alas, alas! Within a week from that time Captain