It was a grand old place he owned, in the county in which he was born. Broxbridge Hall had everything to recommend it. Situated on the summit of a hill, with acres and acres of land spreading out on all sides, fine old woods, fertile land, through which a silver stream wound its sinuous course, and a house of the old Elizabethan type, together with a princely income. Nevertheless this man was not happy. Nay more, he was supremely wretched. No wonder a shadow had crossed over his house――a shadow deep and sinister. The misfortunes that had befallen him and his were, to a certain extent, attributable to circumstances beyond his control; but he had added to these misfortunes by his own indomitable pride. People, in speaking of him, said he was just and generous, but very proud. He was a rigid observer of class distinctions. He paid all persons the honour due to them, and he expected the same in return. “The Ethalwoods came in with the Conqueror,” he would say. “Had fate ordained them to be kings, they would have known how to reign. Old as the line is, there is not a blot on the escutcheon. No Ethalwood ever forfeited his honour.” It is an axiom as old as the hills――much older, it may be, than the honoured line of the Ethalwoods――that pride must have a fall. Never, surely, was the truth of this more terribly exemplified than in the life of the nobleman now immediately under our notice. Bertram Lord Ethalwood, married a young creature of surpassing beauty. She was nobly born, but vivacious and volatile. She bore him three children――two sons and one daughter. The first blow that fell upon our nobleman――a blow which fell upon him “even as a flail falls upon the garnered grain”――was the elopement of his wife with an officer attached to the Indian army. The injured husband did not show externally any signs of the sorrow which weighed so heavily on his heart. He sued for a divorce, which he obtained without opposition. His wife, shortly after this, died in Calcutta. It was a relief to him when he was apprised of her death. He did not marry again, but he loved his daughter and was proud of his sons. His children were the delight of his heart――the very light and brightness of his home was his daughter. A beautiful, gay, high-spirited girl, who had all the Ethalwood spirit with its attendant pride. Her father literally worshipped her; he watched her beauty as it developed day by day; he pleased himself by fondly imagining what a glorious future was before her. He could not bear to part with her, and would not upon any consideration be persuaded to send her from home. He had governesses and masters for her――he did his best to ensure her a good education at home, but it was, perhaps, the most imprudent thing he could possibly do. He made no allowance for girlish gaiety or exuberance of spirits, and the result of this was that the girl began to look upon her home as a sort of prison.