‘Yes; and I am afraid we were accountable for it. You remember we were at Harthope Castle for the first two years after I was married, while Rotherwood was brought up to the requirements of the Victorian age. The --th was quartered at Harfield, within easy distance, and a splendid looking fellow like Regie was invaluable to Victoria, whenever she wanted anything to go off well. Well, in those days I had a ward, my mother’s great niece, Maude Conway. A pretty winsome creature it was, and an heiress in a moderate sort of way, and poor old Redge, after all his little affairs, and he had had his share of them, was evidently in for it at last. Victoria thought, as well as myself, it was the best thing for them both. He was the sound-hearted, good fellow to keep her matters straight, and she had enough for comfort without overweighting the balance. So they were engaged but unluckily they had to wait till she was of age, about eight months off, and they were both ridiculously shy, and would not have the thing known, though Victoria said it was unwise. I don’t think even Jane suspected it.’ ‘No; I don’t think she could have done so.’ ‘Well, there was the season, and Victoria was not in condition for going out, and Maude was all for staying quietly with her; but old Lady Conway came about--a regular schemer--a woman I never could abide. She had married off her own daughters, and wanted her niece to practise on, that was the fact. Victoria says she always knew that she, Maude I mean, was very impressionable and impulsive, and so she wanted to have her out of harm’s way; but one could not prevent her aunt from getting hold of her and taking her out. Then people told us of her goings on with that scamp Clanmacklosky and that sister of his. Victoria talked to her by the yard, but she denied it, and we thought it all gossip. Regie came up for a couple of nights, and she was as sweet on him as ever, and sent him away thinking it all right; but the end of it was, she fought off going down to Rotherwood with us, but went to Brighton with Lady Conway, and the next thing we heard was that she wrote to throw Reginald over, and she married Clanmacklosky a month after she was twenty-one! I don’t think I ever saw Victoria so cut up, for we had really liked the girl and thought well of her. To this hour I believe it was all that woman’s doing, and that poor Maude has supped sorrow. She has lost all her good looks.’ ‘And Regie has never got over it?’ ‘Not so as to believe in a woman again.’ ‘He used to be rather a joke for susceptibility, and was still a regular boy when we went out to Gibraltar. I thought him much graver.’ ‘Exactly; since that affair his soul has gone into his regiment. It’s a wife to him, and luckily he got his promotion in time, so as not to be shelved.’ ‘I suppose it was really an escape.’