A Moment of Madness

A Moment of Madness opens in the suffocating gap between genteel comfort and domestic ruin, where Roland Tresham's financial desperation drives him to beg his wealthy sister for help. Instead of sympathy, he finds cold judgment, a dazzling glimpse of escape in the beautiful Mabel Moore, and an invitation to Italy just as his own household in Camden Town seems to collapse under poverty, unruly children, and a marriage strained to breaking point. Juliet, exhausted and wounded, faces his bitterness and his plan to abandon her for a foreign post, exposing a once-loving relationship corroded by resentment, duty, and fear. Then fortune turns abruptly: Roland inherits a title and vast wealth, becoming Sir Roland Tresham, while Juliet must absorb the shock of his joy and her own grief. Yet prosperity does not bring peace. He prepares to leave her behind at Tresham Court, and her loneliness is sharpened by the arrival of Lady Tresham, whose presence reveals Juliet's humiliation and resilience. Elsewhere, Captain Norton's uneasy attraction to Margaret Anstruther adds a thread of emotional tension, while a colonial household in Mushin-Bunda is thrown into panic by a reported ghost, stirring fear, rumor, and unsettling hints that superstition may conceal deeper truths. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.