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 242 of 254
Chapter XIX · Althea Intervenes · pp. 347–358
The Keepers of the People
p. 353In the garden of the Pavilion Althea measured ten paces on the lawn, sideways to the rising sun; she bade Ruth stand at one end of them, still careful not to see her face; and placed the maid on one side with her handkerchief in her outstretched hand, bidding her drop it when the pistols were levelled. She came to her place facing Ruth; and said, “Now.”
Ruth, resolved not to fire at her, had been watching her, in an irritation at her listless slowness, and above all at the disorder of her hair. At the word, with a supreme effort she fixed her thought wholly on Prince Ralph, raised her eyes and her pistol towards the blue vault, and calling before her mind his image, saw it there; and her set lips parted in a dreamy smile.
Althea raised her pistol slowly, in a steady hand; covered Ruth’s breast; and then in spite of herself her eyes rose to Ruth’s face. The handkerchief fell. Althea gasped; her hand shook; she tried to recover her aim; but the sight of Ruth’s face had unnerved her: the memories of her long fondness, of a thousand kindnesses interchanged, blotted her mortal purpose from her mind. The pistol fell from a nerveless hand; her limbs failed her; and she sank to the earth with the bitter cry: “I am only a wretched woman after all!”
She buried her face in her hands; and the tears, that would not before lighten her burden, streamed from her eyes.
Ruth dropped her pistol, and running to her threw herself down beside her, and putting her arms very gently round her, drew her face against her breast, and said in a broken voice, “Poor, poor Althea!”
There came a shout from without; the opening gate grated on its hinges; and Prince Ralph rushed on to the lawn. His quick eye took in every detail of the two girls. “You are unhurt!” he gasped; and stood panting heavily.
Althea hid her face in Ruth’s breast in an unbearable, burning shame; and strove in vain to stop her tears and sobs. Ruth threw a hiding arm over her head; and Prince Ralph looked down on them with a troubled face.
Presently, when the sobs came slower, he said sadly, “I never knew, I never thought of this.”
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.