The Lord Henry Purceville lay alone in the heavy framed bed, with sleep the distant memory of a child. And though he knew there were a thousand contingencies which he must anticipate, and prepare against, still a single question drove all others from his mind. How had it come to this? His own son, whose hatred now seemed assured, had turned against him, and had to be bound and dragged away like a criminal. His beautiful, melancholy daughter, who had dared to stand up to him, lay pale and shivering in the Tower at his own command. And he himself, once a proud and fearless soldier of the line, lying and hiding to protect his pitiful gains from a withered aristocrat whose skull he could so easily crush. Feeling suffocated, frothing with rage at his helplessness, he threw aside the covers and rose to pace about the room as if a cage. Because the question that truly galled him was not Why , but Why now? If such a reversal had come when he was younger, with his future still ahead of him, he might have seen some justice to it. He would have known there was a difference between good and evil, and all that this knowledge implied. He would have believed in something. He could not lie, and say the knowledge would have changed him much. But at least he would have known, as his daughter's plight had shown him, that real people were the victims of his blind aggression, people whose only crimes were not weakness and naiveté, but kindness and compassion. But he had not know, or so he told himself. His life had run on, untaught and unobstructed, a raging beast crushing everything in its path. And now, just as surely, that killing momentum would hurl him from the brink of its dark height---down, down into the yawning abyss. Of what lay at the bottom, he dared not even think. And not only was it too late for him, but for his victims as well. How many men had he killed in battle, or destroyed in the political arena, to attain what he had once called power? How many women had he sucked dry and then discarded? And for what? Only to learn when the damage was already done that the actions of men, for good or evil, made a difference. They mattered! The bile rose in his throat, nearly choking him. For now the mindless cruelty of life. . .was slowly turning back upon him. That same unyielding blade, the heartless razor that he had served and become, was proving to be double-edged. But fear and a momentary helplessness were not to be confused with impotent despair. The Lord Purceville was far from defeated. He let the feelings run, because for the first time in many years he could not stop them, and he knew it was unwise to try. Time enough to master his emotions when the flood had died down. For now he must know where personal weakness was likely to occur.