Excerpt from Sackcloth and Broadcloth, Vol. 3 of 3: A Novel Matthew; but now the image of the stately Valentina, as he describes her, with her, queenly beauty, her composure and her sterling sense, helping him through all the difficult bits of life, seems ever to stand conspicuously between them. And as she pictures her rival, the last faint scintilla of hope dies out of Claire's hear't. That Matthew deserves censure for Claire's sufferings there is little doubt; still he is not as much to blame as Lady Laura supposes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.