"Twenty years ago I was not the man you're looking at now. This land, this estate prospered. My people lived well and were happy. My wife had died some years before and I was lonely. Then, one day in the village, I saw Ilsa, a peasant girl who'd come to live there with her mother. Oh, I could have taken her! Nobles have taken the daughters of peasants since the beginning of time. But, I loved her - and she became the Baroness Von Leppe."