For twenty-odd years, [Margaret Dacre] had led a dutiful, shawl-carrying, emotionally suppressed life. Across the street of the quiet English village she had watched with fascinated interest the progress of the town scandal, the rapid disintegration of Andrew Lane, drunkard, reprobate, Don Juan, and the woman who was not his wife. When the woman died, Margaret moved in and adopted the unwilling Andrw as her mission. Their strange and passionate courtship, their discouragement and defeat and the final miracle that Margaret wrought through the power of her love, make one of the most brilliant novels in Mr. Maxwell's long career. -- Jacket flap.