And for a time it had been so, and he had drowned his trouble in a sea in which he wellnigh drowned himself as well.
Once more memory pointed--pointed across five dark years to an evening when he had sat as he was sitting now, alone by the wide stone hearth in the hall at Stoke Moreton, after his father's death, and after the reading of the will.

He was the possessor of the old home, which he had always passionately loved, from which he had been virtually banished so long.

His father, who had never liked him, but who of late years had hated him as men only hate their eldest sons, had left all in his power to his second son, had entailed every acre of the Stoke Moreton and other family properties upon him and his children.

Charles could touch nothing, and over him hung a millstone of debt, from which there was now no escape.

He sat with his head in his hands--the man whom his friends were envying on his accession to supposed wealth and position--ruined.
A few days later he was summoned to London by a friend whom he had known for many years.