A mutilated corpse was brought back to his hotel in the Piazza di Spagna.

Death, alas! is no respecter of the Nobility.

That shattered form was all that remained of the fiery, the haughty, the wild, but the generous Altamont de Pentonville! Such, such is fate! The admirable Emily de Pentonville trembled with all a mother's solicitude at the distinctions and honors which thus suddenly descended on her boy.

She engaged an excellent clergyman of the Church of England to superintend his studies; to accompany him on foreign travel when the proper season arrived; to ward from him those dangers which dissipation always throws in the way of the noble, the idle, and the wealthy.

But the Reverend Cyril Delaval died of the measles at Naples, and henceforth the young Earl of Bagnigge was without a guardian.
What was the consequence?
That, at three-and-twenty, he was a cynic and an epicure.