to Harrow and afterwards to Oxford, but the City of Spires was rather too much for young Travers, as he was everywhere called now, and he was sent down after one term. However, he had got all he thought necessary out of the university. He could talk about it, and that was all _he_ wanted. He then was put in a crack regiment; but unfortunately for him, he had not been there a year before his patron unexpectedly died, having made no will, and George Travers was thrown on the world with very little but a thorough knowledge of the ropes, some talent for backing the right horse, and a very considerable talent for winning at poker; and it was not a duel but a card scandal that brought his early career in London society to an untimely end. He was obliged to leave England, although circumstances necessitated the hushing up of the scandal. He joined a theatrical company in America, and made a somewhat substantial success out there. He returned to England with some money and the intention of continuing his stage career under his father’s name. While waiting for a chance, unaccountably to himself, he fell in love with Grace Lovell; we all have our moments of weakness, and in one of these he married this child, who was full of dreams, full of ambition, full of hopes, wild as only those of a young actress who has made her first success can be. She had been engaged as understudy for one of London’s favourite soubrettes, had been called upon to play the part at a moment’s notice. She had done so with such dainty freshness, and had made her points with such innocent piquancy, that she had attracted public notice to a very considerable extent. She played the part three weeks, and during those weeks George Travers came to the theatre, saw, and conquered. When her engagement was over she married him at a registry office, and disappeared from the stage. As fate would have it, almost the moment he had taken this step George Travers made the acquaintance of Lord Kirkdale at the Junior Carlton, whither he had been taken by Charles Melton, an owner of racehorses. The two got on very well; the next day they lunched together, and, strolling along Pall Mall afterwards, encountered Mrs. George Travers. She looked at them expectantly; George smiled, nodded, and gave her a little sign to pass on without speaking. She did so, but not before Kirkdale’s curiosity had been vividly aroused. However, Travers vouchsafed no information, but that she lived in the country and he supposed she was up in town shopping for the day. A week or two later, just as he was changing his last fiver, he encountered an Italian, Count Guaschaci, whose life he had saved in a tap-room free fight, out in the Western States. Guaschaci listened to his troubles sympathetically, and as he was leaving England for six months, told him he should be really obliged if he would look after his establishment at Old Windsor; all he asked of him was to keep things going until his return.