of his life. His wife had borne him two girls. The first died in infancy,
and some years later Sisily was born. His regrets increased with the birth
of a second daughter. He wanted a son to succeed him in the title--when he
gained it. Time passed, and he became enraged. His anger crushed the timid
woman who shared his strange lot. His dominating temperament and moody
pride were too much for her gentle soul. She became desperately afraid of
him and his stern ways, of that monomania which kept them wandering
through the country searching for links in a [pedigree] which had to be
traced back for hundreds of years before Robert Turold could grasp his
heart's desire.

When She died in the house on the cliffs where they had come six months
before, Robert Turold had accomplished the task to which his life had been
devoted. Some weeks before he had summoned his brother from London to
disclose his future plans. The brothers had not met for many years, but
Austin was quick to obey when he learnt that a fortune and a title were at
stake. The sister and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Pendleton, had reached
Cornwall two days before the funeral. They were to take Sisily back to
London with them. It was Robert Turold's intention to part with his
daughter and place her in his sister's charge. For a reason he had not yet
divulged, Sisily was to have no place in his brilliant future. He disliked
his daughter. Her sex was a fatal bar to his regard. He had heaped so many
reproaches on her mother for bringing another girl into the world that the
poor woman had descended to the grave with a confused idea that she was to
blame.

Sisily had a strange nature, reticent, yet tender. She had loved her
mother passionately, and feared and hated her father because he had
treated his wife so harshly. She had been the witness of it all--from her
earliest childhood to the moment when the unhappy woman had died with her