"But, surprised by some of Edward's officers, who knew his weakness, and took advantage thereof to gain their own ends, he committed, one unlucky day, while beside himself from the influence of wine, the shameful deed of betrayal of his loved king and master; and encountering Ap Gryffyth on the battlefield, as the enemy's soldiers were in the act of dragging him away to Carnarvon, where he was beheaded, and falling in deepest misery and dejection at his feet, to sue his pardon for the sin committed in a moment of miserable folly and weakness, he but drew upon his own head the awful curse of the betrayed and wretched monarch, who with terrible imprecations doomed him and his heirs for ever to the slavery of a drunkenness they should be powerless to resist, and to a deathbed of horror, which, the result of so terrible a life, no Bryn Afon has since escaped. The wretched earl was dragged away, a white-haired, prematurely-aged man, to fulfil the curse most terribly, by drinking down his misery until an early and dreadful death overtook him; and though the fearful words of Ap Gryffyth were only heard by his own son and by his miserable betrayer, and so have ever since remained a dead secret to the outside world, yet they have borne their terrible fruit only too truly in each of the unhappy Bryn Afon's descendants, until in you, fair Primrose, reared as I, long ere your birth, resolved to rear you, they have at length in the providence of a merciful God become dead and lifeless. How the gipsy gained her knowledge I know not, nor need we to know. And now, sweet daughter, by your marriage with one whose whole manhood is given to combating this especial deadly evil, and whom it has never had power to hurt or lead astray, you shall raise up the fallen fortunes of your race, and remove for ever the stain which has darkened for so many generations your ancient House. So look up, my darling, and put away from you all remembrance of its sin-darkened history and past shame, and go forth without fear or trembling into the new life which awaits you, and into the loving arms of one whose deep devotion shall chase away every care and every thought of past pain from this fair brow!"