A wealthy young baronet, whom Lady Linlithgow selected as a husband for her penniless niece Lizzie Greystock. Cleverly aided by Lizzie, they won the gamble, although they knew that he was dying, and within a year he was dead. Even before that, he had ample proof of the sort of girl he had married, but by his will she received a generous competence. In addition to that she claimed the family diamonds as a gift. Her fight to keep them is the center of the plot of The Eustace Diamonds.

"...a young man about eight-and twenty, very handsome, of immense wealth, quite unencumbered, moving in the best circles, popular, so far prudent that he never risked his fortune on the turf or in gambling-houses, with a reputation of a gallant soldier, and a most devoted lover"