Caught in a Trap

A novel set in England. In this novel, Tom Hartshorne invites Allynne Markworth to go for his annual week at his mother's place in Sussex. Allynne Markworth was not so much a type, as a specimen, of a curious class of men constantly to be met with in London society, and of whom society knows next to nothing. To tell the truth Allynne Markworth lived by his wits. He was a Chevalier d'Industrie in a certain sense of the term, although in a slightly more moral degree; and ran the race set before him by preying on the weaknesses, follies, and ignorances of human nature in the abstract, as evinced amongst his fellows in the concrete. The fact was he came back to London money-hunting, and had made up his mind that unless he married a fortune, discovered a gold mine, or tumbled into some wonderful luck, his «little game,» as he expressed it, would be «all up.» He was glad to meet Tom Hartshorne so very opportunely at the present juncture, for he thought that he might be put in the way of some plan for changing events. Will Allynne Markworth discover a gold mine or fall into a trap?