all, perhaps your life from you; remember his son, my
Lord Wildan, what entertainments he gave me when you were
at the Tilt-yard. If you were dead, he said, he would be
a husband, a father, a brother, and said he would marry
me. I protest I grieve to see the poor man have so little
wit and honesty to use his friend so vilely; also, he fed
me with untruths concerning the Charter-House; but that
is the least; he wished me much harm; you know how. God
keep you and me from him, and such as he is.

"So now I have declared to you my mind, what I would
have, and what I would not have; I pray you, when you be
Earl, to allow a thousand pounds more than now I desire
and double allowance.--Your loving wife, ELIZABETH COMPTON."




CHAPTER XII

TRAGEDIES OF THE TURF


In the whole drama of the British Peerage there are few figures at once
so splendid in promise and opportunities, so pathetic in failure and so
tragic in their exit as that of the fourth and last Marquess of
Hastings. Seldom has man been born to a greater heritage; scarcely ever
has he flung away more prodigally the choicest gifts of fortune.

When Henry Weysford Charles Plantagenet was born one July day in 1842 it