His Darling Sin by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

"That small, small, imperceptible / Small talk! that cuts like powdered glass / Ground in Tophana, -- who can tell / Where lurks the power the poison has? "

There is the desolation of riches as well as the desolation of poverty -- the empty splendour of a large house in which there is no going and coming of family life, no sound of light footsteps and youthful laughter -- only spacious rooms and fine furniture, and one solitary figure moving silently amidst the vacant grandeur. This sense of desolation, of a melancholy silence and emptiness, came upon Lady Perivale on her return to the mansion in Grosvenor Square, which was among the numerous good things of this world that had fallen into her lap, seven years ago, when she made one of the best matches of the season.