A slight romance attaches to him, too.

His mother was a French governess, and it seems that a secret attachment existed between her and the late Lord Severn.

She was married to a poor medical man, and soon after an infant was born; and while money was forthcoming all went on well.

Unfortunately for her boy, his best friends died; and he got then a situation as second clerk at a lawyer's in Casterbridge.

He stayed there for some time, and might have worked himself into a dignified position of some sort had he not indulged in the wild freak of enlisting.