The Master Hope

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. The Master Hope opens in a mood of longing, moral uncertainty, and the hard-won possibility of change. Daphne stands at a turning point: on her last day in London, she wanders the city with the shy and good-natured Lord Cheston, turning playful banter into a quiet reckoning with loss, judgment, and the life she may become if she dares to begin again. Burning her old love letters, she tries to sever ties to a past that still claims her. As she enters the country world of the Fordingtons, the novel widens into a sharp, humane study of religion, class, and conscience. Mrs. Fordington's rigid moderation clashes with her husband's gentler faith, while little Dora's innocent questions expose the cruelty hidden in adult certainty. Daphne's arrival in this new home brings her into contact with a broader, more spiritual Christianity, and later into comic theological warfare at a clergyman's dinner, where ritual, truth, and charity collide. Beneath the satire runs a deeper social criticism, especially in Mr. Mitchell's sympathy for laborers and the spiritual hunger of ordinary lives. The story also follows Bert Russell and Katherine Linton, whose sparring, grief, and mutual attraction probe independence, work, and class. A reflective interlude deepens the atmosphere of memory and uncertainty, before the novel turns darker: Daphne's engagement to David begins to look like a trap, and a tense evening in London reveals the danger beneath his polish. Reggie's intervention leaves her shaken, but newly aware that she may yet choose love over obligation.