An artist in his forties, after the death of his wife and 15 years of idle travel on the continent, returns to a small New England village by the sea, where he marries a quiet, commonplace, housewifely woman for security, only to fall violently in love with a young writer. She sends him back to his wife, knowing she could not offer him the serenity he needs for his painting. In the Warwick Deeping tradition, leisurely, sympathetic. Good woman's novel.