Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · English Edition
The Keepers of the People
A Critical Edition of the 1898 Novel
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English Edition · Branch 107 of 254
Chapter XI · The Loss of Althea · pp. 115–129
The Keepers of the People
p. 128“I am sure. Two dogs, and seven brown men. We shall never see her any more.”
Lord Lisdor knew that Ralph Falcon had only brought with him to England Alrasch and Balas.
“Well I’ll be shot!” he cried. “I suppose she told him she was bullied; and he settled the matter by carrying her off.” Then he caught the look on Lady Lisdor’s face, and said, “Why I believe you knew it, Ruth!”
“No; but I had an idea it might be so,” she said lightly.
“And you never told me?” he said reproachfully. “You let me wear myself out hunting for her?”
“Well, you enjoyed it. You always enjoyed hunting, don’t you know?” she said, smiling at him with mischievous eyes; she was overjoyed that the discovery had come at last: she saw what would follow it.
“Oh,” he said sadly, “where was your wifely confidence? Surely a wife should hide nothing from her husband?”
“No: but they do,” she said. “A judicious reticence is the art of marriage.”
“And what’s to be done now?” said Lord Lisdor.
“I suppose we must go and find Althea,” said Lady Lisdor.
“Yes; we must go and find Althea,” said the poet.
Lord Lisdor looked at them for a moment thoughtfully, considering whether or no to let them go; then he raised his glass to his lips, and said, “Well, here’s luck in the finding of Althea. After all, it will be jolly romantic, don’t you know?”
Ruth’s restlessness fell from her.
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book I, Chapter XI · The Loss of Althea · Book I, Chapter XI · The Loss of Althea · pp. 115–129
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Edgar Jepson’s The Keepers of the People begins as a late-Victorian lost-kingdom romance and becomes an unsettling political argument. Ralph Falcon moves from an English country house to the hidden state of Varandaleel, where laughter, secrecy, violence, education, and the duties of rulers are tested against one another.
Historical Text
The novel was first published in London in 1898 by C. Arthur Pearson. This reading text follows the owner-supplied critical edition, whose copy-text is the Methuen Colonial Library issue of the same year digitised by the Internet Archive. The supplied editorial note records the edition’s corrections, normalisations, limits, and unresolved textual risks.
About This Edition
This English Edition preserves the complete supplied text and apparatus: the introduction, reading guide, key words, plot outline, editorial note, both books and all thirty chapters, and the end notes. Its reader branches end at paragraph boundaries, with the original chapter structure and chapter page references mapped to the 1898 printing.
Rights
Edgar Jepson’s 1898 novel is in the public domain. The introduction, reader’s guide, key words, outline, editorial note, notes, editorial arrangement, and design of the supplied edition are © 2026 Diotimos Editions.