The story of Silas Marner was that of a man who became embittered and estranged because of a false accusation for thievery which had been placed on bis bead by a friend whom he had trusted. Driven from his native town, he settled down, a miserable, unhappy weaver far from home, and let one passion, the love for gold, become the absorbing motive of his existence. In the town where he plied his trade lived Squire Cass, the father of two sons. One of them, Godfrey, by name, was a serious-purposed conscientious young man, on whom his father leaned for support. The other, Dunstan, the younger, was a spendthrift and a roisterer. As the elder son grew in favor with his father, and as his marriage to Nancy Lammeter, the daughter of a most respectable family, seemed imminent, Dunstan resolved that his brother should be forced to fall from grace.