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 240 of 254
Chapter XIX · Althea Intervenes · pp. 347–358
The Keepers of the People
p. 350Her touch awoke a sudden rage in Althea; she flung off the hand; and cried, “Do? You can go! Go from Varandaleel!”
Ruth rose; and the struggle in her heart convulsed her face. “It is too late!” she cried in a thick voice. “I will not go! I love him! I loved him — long, long before you! I have won his love! I will not go!”
Althea sprang to her feet, a white fury, and faced her. “You shall go!” she cried. “You have won his love — yes! But you have not won him — yet! You shall fight me for him! And — you — shall — go!”
“Fight you?” said Ruth.
“Yes; fight me! You can shoot — very well. At dawn to-morrow, you shall fight me for him, with pistols;” said Althea, of a sudden cool and dangerous.
They were in such a heat of warring passions that this impossible settlement of the matter struck on the ears of each as the most natural in the world. Althea, distracted by jealousy and anguish, saw in Ruth’s death, even though her own followed it presently, an immediate relief from her most pressing pangs. Ruth, distracted by the pain of having inflicted this deplorable hurt on the child on whom she had lavished her fondness for so many years, burned to make any amends. She walked the length of the room thrice; faced Althea with steady, thoughtful eyes; and said quietly, “Very good. I am a Falcon: were we men, and I had robbed you of a mistress, by every tradition of the family I should give you satisfaction. I will fight you at dawn.” And she left her.
Althea stood without movement for a while; and the anger in her heart faded once more to misery. Then she flung herself face downwards on the bed, and lay as she had fallen, through the night; she slept fitfully, always awaking to the same bitter anguish.
Ruth came into her own room; sat for a long while very still, until her spirit grew composed; then going to a table, she drew ink and paper to her, and wrote: —
“Goodbye, dear love. I love you. I love you. Do not touch Althea. — Ruth.”
She folded it; sealed it; wrote Prince Ralph’s name on the outside, sat thoughtful awhile, and said with a sad smile, “I thought life had grown too splendid.”
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book II, Chapter XIX · Althea Intervenes · Book II, Chapter XIX · Althea Intervenes · pp. 347–358
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.