In this second volume of Margaret Oliphant's quietly devastating domestic trilogy, newlyweds Arthur and Nancy Curtis face the wreckage that follows their marriage. Arthur, cut off from his family for marrying beneath him, receives a letter from his sister that confirms his darkest suspicions: his choices have brought ruin. Yet the bitter truth is that doubt has already taken root in his own heart. Nancy, gentle and devoted, finds herself adrift in a world of subtle social humiliations, her husband increasingly distant, his tenderness soured by regret. Oliphant writes with surgical precision about the peculiar hell of early marriage, that moment when two strangers realize the enormity of their identification with each other. The happiness is real, but so is the poison. It is a novel about what happens when love meets the cold light of consequence, and neither spouse is innocent of the damage.
