smoke of the distant mills.

Anthony Cardew did not like the plain people. Yet in the end, it
was the plain people, those who neither labored with their hands
nor lived by the labor of others--it was the plain people who
vanquished him. Vanquished him and tried to protect him. But
could not. A smallish man, hard and wiry, he neither saved himself
nor saved others. He had one fetish, power. And one pride, his
line. The Cardews were iron masters. Howard would be an iron
master, and Howard's son.

But Howard never had a son.



CHAPTER III


All through her teens Lily had wondered about the mystery concerning
her Aunt Elinor. There was an oil portrait of her in the library,
and one of the first things she had been taught was not to speak
of it.

Now and then, at intervals of years, Aunt Elinor came back. Her
mother and father would look worried, and Aunt Elinor herself would
stay in her rooms, and seldom appeared at meals. Never at dinner.
As a child Lily used to think she had two Aunt Elinors, one the
young girl in the gilt frame, and the other the quiet, soft-voiced
person who slipped around the upper corridors like a ghost.