The central figure in Harold Frederic's novel is a Methodist minister, self-educated, untutored in the ways of the world, and intensely earnest. He is brought into intimate association with a woman who is in every way his spiritual and intellectual antithesis - a Roman Catholic, brilliant, beautiful, and self-indulgent, who seeks a new sensation in tempting the raw country preacher who has yet to learn the perils of a prolonged flirtation. The scene, like that of most of Mr. Frederic's books, is laid in a small country town, and he once more draws to the life the crudities and curiosities of American provincial life.