He did little more than earn a bare subsistence, and died at last, when his only daughter was fourteen, poor and embarrassed On his death-bed he wrote a letter to Sir Miles reminding him that, after all, Susan was his sister's child, gently vindicating himself from the unmerited charge of treachery, which had blasted his fortunes and left his orphan penniless, and closing with a touching yet a manly appeal to the sole relative left to befriend her.
The clergyman who had attended him in his dying moments took charge of this letter; he brought it in person to Laughton, and delivered it to Sir Miles.

Whatever his errors, the old baronet was no common man.

He was not vindictive, though he could not be called forgiving.

He had considered his conduct to his sister a duty owed to his name and ancestors; she had placed herself and her youngest child out of the pale of his family.

He would not receive as his niece the grand-daughter of a silk-mercer.