The novel follows the education of a young woman under the tutelage of a tyrannical father figure. Elizabeth Raby, a six-year-old orphan, saves Rupert Falkner from suicide; Falkner then adopts her and raises her to be a model of virtue. She does, however, fall in love with Gerald Neville, whose mother Falkner had unintentionally killed years before. When Falkner is acquitted of murdering Neville's mother, Elizabeth's female values subdue the destructive impulses of the two men she loves, who reconcile and unite in domestic harmony with Elizabeth.