The Mask: A Story of Love and Adventure

A Wall Street promoter bets everything on a legendary diamond deep in the South African veldt. Kenneth Traynor has spent years building his fortune, but nothing compares to the stone his company has found: 1,649 carats of impossible beauty, second only to the Koh-i-noor. He must travel half a world away to claim it, leaving behind Helen, his wife, whose fears prove hauntingly justified. When Kenneth departs, their morning breakfast carries the weight of all they cannot say. An enigmatic fencing master lurks in their household, his presence unsettling in ways Helen cannot articulate. As Kenneth journeys toward the diamond, he discovers that wealth demands sacrifices he never imagined, and that the greatest danger may not be the mines but what waits at home. Hornblow's 1913 adventure weaves romance and peril into a tale of what we risk for glittering things.