of the Earl of Swimbridge,
whom the whole world knows to be beyond all question the proudest member
of the British peerage. Amiable, generous, high-spirited, and with
every trait of the best type of the British gentleman fully developed in
him, this son had joined the British navy at an early age, as a
midshipman, and had made rapid progress in the profession of his
choice--to his father's unbounded satisfaction and delight--up to a
certain point. Then, when he was within a few months of his
twenty-fifth birthday, a horrible thing happened. Without a shadow of
warning, and like a bolt from the blue, disgrace and disaster fell upon
and morally destroyed him; and almost in a moment the once favoured
child of good fortune found himself an outcast from home and society;
disowned by those nearest and dearest to him; with every hope and
aspiration blasted; branded as a felon; and his whole life ruined, as it
seemed to him, irretrievably. In his father's house, and while enjoying
a short period of well-earned leave, he was arrested upon a charge of
forgery and embezzlement; and, after a short period of imprisonment,
tried, found guilty, and sentenced to a period of seven years' penal
servitude! Vain were all his protestations of innocence; vain his
counsel's representation that there was no earthly motive for such a
crime on the part of his client; the evidence adduced against him was so
overwhelmingly complete and convincing--although the greater part of it
was circumstantial--that his protestations were regarded as a positive
aggravation of his offence; and the last news that reached him ere the
prison gates closed upon him were that the girl who had promised to be
his wife had already given herself to his rival; while his father,
stricken to earth by the awful blow to his family pride, as well as to
his affection, was not expected to live.

That so fearfully crushing a catastrophe should have fallen with
paralysing effect upon the moral nature of the convict himself was only
what might naturally be expected. With the pronouncement of that
terrible sentence by the judge the victim's character underwent a
complete and instantaneous transformation, as was evidenced by the fact
that to him the worst feature of the case seemed to be that he was
innocent! He felt that had he been guilty he could have borne his
punishment, because he would have richly merited it; but that, being
_innocent_, he should thus be permitted to s