A more dangerous companion for a young man in a depressed state of mind than Beaumont could hardly be imagined, for he led Reginald to plunge into riotous pleasures for the sake of distraction, from which he would have otherwise recoiled. Having an eminently refined mind, and a delight in cultured company, had he been thoroughly healthy he would never have been drawn by this modern Mephistopheles into the vortex of frenzied pleasure in which his days and nights were now engulfed. But, being in a morbid state of mind, he brooded eternally over the presumed stigma attached to his name until it became a perfect nightmare to him. He thought that everyone knew his miserable story and despised him for the anomalous position he now occupied, so, in a mad spirit of bravado, he became quite reckless, and determined to defy the world which his sensitive spirit imagined to be sneering at him as a bastard. Terrible to relate, in spite of the relationship existing between them, Beaumont, who should have prevented the young man from falling into such an unhealthy state of mind, rather encouraged his gloomy fits than otherwise, as he thought it would give him a greater hold than ever over his son, so deliberately led the unhappy young man on to ruin--ruin, not of his fortune or position, but of his physical and moral nature. In his best days, the circle of Beaumont's acquaintances had not been a very large or reputable one, but now it was smaller and worse than ever; nevertheless, he introduced the young master of Garsworth Grange to his friends, whose manners, generally speaking, were as polished as their morals were bad. Broken down professional men, played-out lords, ruined gentlemen of fortune, shady hangers-on of society; these were the daily associates of Reginald Blake, until his mind, eminently calculated to receive impressions, began to grow corrupted. The society of hawks is rather a dangerous thing for doves, and this poor unsophisticated dove was of far too guileless a nature to mistrust the birds of prey by which he found himself surrounded, though, to be sure, his natural instincts of right and wrong saved him from many a pitfall. Not that the hawks around him did any harm to his pecuniary position, for Beaumont was too selfish to allow anyone to have the plucking of this well-feathered pigeon save himself, and there being an unwritten code of honour even among hawks, the young man was left entirely to the tender mercies of his evil-minded Mentor. Nevertheless, the long nights of play, the wiles of women whose beauty did not redeem their frailty, and the constant life of excitement passed under the feverish glare of the gaslight, soon destroyed the fresh healthy feeling of youth Reginald Blake had possessed during the quiet years of his country life.