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 77 of 254
Chapter VIII · An Offer of a Crown · pp. 77–86
The Keepers of the People
p. 78“Oh!” cried Lady Hammersmith. “Very well: I find that you are, as I expected, hardened. I will have no further dealings with you! I forbid you my house! And understand that though I have no influence with a corrupt, time-serving English Press, I can have the Indian Press take the matter up; and I will not rest till the horrors of your father’s estate have been unmasked, and suppressed by the moral fervour of an indignant world!”
“You are talking of matters of which you know nothing, you foolish woman,” said Ralph Falcon.
“Am I? Am I? — You shall see!” cried Lady Hammersmith, who was used to speak plainly, but never to be spoken to with this plainness. “But behind me is the immense moral force of England’s womanhood; and you shall see!”
Her anger against him had not abated when she left Quivern Court.
Ruth herself drove Althea to the station, in her dog-cart; and returned dejected.
Ralph Falcon met her returning, as he was strolling through the park; and she climbed down from the cart, and walked with him to the house.
“Althea seems unhappy in her home,” he said.
“She is. She’s very lonely, poor child. We have her here as often as we can; but every now and then her mother fancies that we have a bad influence on her,” said Lady Lisdor.
“I shall change it,” said Ralph Falcon.
“You? How can you?” said Lady Lisdor.
“I think I see a way,” said Ralph Falcon.
“Oh, I do wish you would!” she said.
“You are very fond of her?” he said.
“I believe I am fonder of her than of any one in the world — now,” she said.
Lord Lisdor met them in the garden, and said to her, “I suppose we shall have to move to London after that child?”
“Yes; soon,” she said.
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book I, Chapter VIII · An Offer of a Crown · Book I, Chapter VIII · An Offer of a Crown · pp. 77–86
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.