VC

On a storm-racked March night in the English countryside, Jack Jervase bursts home to Beacon Hargate and finds his fire occupied by men drinking his beer while news from London crackles toward war with Russia. Blunt, swaggering, and half-amused by his own fury, he hurls himself into the excitement of the moment, urging enlistment with patriotic fervor even as darker motives flicker beneath his humor. Around him, the house gathers tension: General Boswell's calm authority, young Polson Jervase's hunger for military glory, and the sudden arrival of a stranger bearing ominous news. As the storm breaks, the story widens into a web of family history, social respectability, and buried fraud. Behind the Jervases' prosperity lies a long-concealed salt-pit scheme, a profitable deception shared with the pious, self-made James Knock Jervoyce and protected by silence, bribery, and greed. When a blackmailer threatens to expose the truth, the household's confidence collapses into fear, and Polson is forced to reckon with the ruin that could destroy his future, his father, and the woman he loves. Amid the disgrace, duty becomes sacrifice: Polson abandons his commission and enlists as a common soldier. In a final, restrained meeting with Irene, love endures under the pressure of class, honor, and war, as both face a future remade by scandal and service. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.