He had no sisters. Had even this influence been brought to bear upon him he might have grown up differently. The men who have had sisters are generally the best. The constant presence of womanhood in a house acts as a charm. Boys who grow up among boys are always inferior to their fellows in manners, in tact, and, as far as the world knows, in their standard of morality. It is difficult to overrate the beneficial influence which sisters exercise over their brothers in an English household. Edward Marston, deprived of everything which could appeal to his better self, drifted into a swift current of evil. His associates were young men of wealth and position, and he imitated their tastes at any cost. When his father went away to America he found himself utterly stranded, with nothing but his vices. He lived on them. He got mixed up with a fast set of young men, and in pursuit of pleasure made doubtful friendships. It was easy to foretell the end. He had no money; he had therefore to get it from those who had. Such men are met in the largest quantities on racecourses in billiard-rooms, and gambling-saloons. These places were the haunts of young Marston, and fate flung him into close companionship with well-dressed rogues and well-dressed fools. Among his ‘set’ were Oliver Birnie, a good-natured devil-may-care medical student, clever enough, but fond of more dissipation than he could get out of the two hundred a year his father, a small country practitioner, allowed him, and Gurth Egerton, a young man much after his own heart, whose only living relative was a wealthy cousin, a man of five-and-thirty. This latter was Ralph Egerton, a man who might have been anything he chose, but who, inheriting a large fortune, plunged into dissipation and drank to the verge of madness. In his sober moments he was a good fellow; drunk he was a quarrelsome rowdy, and an easy prey to the young sharks who swarmed about him. Gurth and he were pretty constant companions, but they quarrelled fearfully. Gurth resented Ralph’s wealth, yet he lived on him. Gurth brought him to the dens, and Marston helped to pluck him. They let Ralph fancy himself a little king of Bohemia; they ate his dinners and drank his wine, and when he was drunk enough they took him to gambling hells and cheated him. A favourite haunt with them all was Josh Heckett’s. Heckett did many queer things for a living. Among others he kept a betting office in Soho, and had a little room where a select few of his customers played roulette or any game they chose. It was in this room that the event happened with which the reader is already well acquainted. It was just after that that young Marston disappeared from the scene and went to America—to his father, he said—but whatever was his real motive, it was known only to himself. Leading the life he did, he had yet found time to fall in love with a beautiful girl who had returned his affection.