gambling blood of generations of dicing, horse-racing ancestors running
fierily in his veins, fell in love with beautiful but penniless Virginia
Dale, and married her, spent and wagered his small patrimony right royally
while it lasted, and borrowed from all and sundry when it was squandered.
Finally, he ended a varied but diverting existence in a ditch with a broken
neck, while the horse that should have retrieved his fortunes galloped
first past the winning-post--riderless.

Sir Philip Brabazon let fly a few torrid comments on the subject of his
brother's career, and then did the only decent thing--took Virginia and her
son, now heir to the title, to live with him.

It was then that Ann Lovell, who was a godchild of Sir Philip's, had
learned to know and love Tony's mother. Motherless herself, she had soon
discovered that the frailly beautiful, sad-faced woman who had come to live
with her somewhat irascible godparent, filled a gap in her small life of
which, hitherto, she had been only dimly conscious. With the passing of the
years came a clearer understanding of how much Virginia's advent had meant
to her, and ultimately no bond between actual mother and daughter could
have been stronger than the bond which had subsisted between these two.

It was to Ann that Virginia confided her inmost fears lest Tony should
follow in his father's footsteps. From Sir Philip, choleric and tyrannical,
she concealed them completely--and many of Tony's youthful escapades as
well, paying some precocious card-losses he sustained while still in his
early teens out of her own slender dress allowance in preference to rousing
his uncle's ire by a knowledge of them. But with Ann, she had been utterly
frank.

"Tony's a born gambler," she told her. "But he has a stronger will than his