But there was more than hate in the affront that he had offered; there
was calculation - to an even greater extent than we have seen. It
happened that through his own fault young Richard was all but
penniless. The pious, nonconformist soul of Sir Geoffrey Lupton - the
wealthy uncle from whom he had had great expectations - had been so
stirred to anger by Richard's vicious and besotted ways that he had left
every guinea that was his, every perch of land, and every brick of
edifice to Richard's half-sister Ruth. At present things were not so bad
for the worthless boy. Ruth worshipped him. He was a sacred charge
to her from their dead father, who, knowing the stoutness of her soul
and the feebleness of Richard's, had in dying imposed on her the care
and guidance of her graceless brother. But Ruth, in all things strong,
was weak with Richard out of her very fondness for him. To what she
had he might help himself, and thus it was that things were not so bad
with him at present. But when Richard's calculating mind came to give
thought to the future he found that this occasioned him some care.
Rich ladies, even when they do not happen to be equipped in addition
with Ruth's winsome beauty and endearing nature, are not wont to go
unmarried. It would have pleased Richard best to have had her remain
a spinster. But he well knew that this was a matter in which she might
have a voice of her own, and it behoved him betimes to take wise
measures where possible husbands were concerned.

The first that came in a suitor's obvious panoply was Anthony Wilding,
of Zoyland Chase, and Richard watched his advent with foreboding.
Wilding's was a personality to dazzle any woman, despite - perhaps
even because of - the reputation for wildness that clung to him. That
he was known as Wild Wilding to the countryside is true; but it were
unfair - as Richard knew - to attach to this too much importance;