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aether
took the place of steam as the power driving the Industrial Revolution. Ruthless, power-mongering Alice Meynell, Greatgrandmistress of the Guild of Telegraphers, has one soft spot--for her son Ralph, gravely ill with consumption. When she brings him to an isolated country home for his health, Ralph falls in love with Marion, a lower-class girl, and together they conceive both a child and a scientific theory of evolution. Unfortunately, Alice does not look well upon the match, and her all-consuming ambitions for herself and her son lead to tragedy for Marion and Ralph as well as for England.