A WORLD FULL OF SECRETS

A shiftless, likable tale with pretensions above its romancey station--all about a brace of stowaways on the good ship Humdrum: Dom Colmcille, nÉ Seumas McDonald, a Scots monk with a murderous secret; and red-haired Lizzie from the West Virginia hill country, who fatally skewered the abusive boor to whom her even more boorish Pa had given her in marriage. So it's a very necessary climb up and away to Virginia proper and a proper gentleman, lain McDonald, whom Lizzie weds after mastering diction and shoes. And McDonald does it all for Lizzie without hardly trying. Back in Scotland, at his reported ""death,"" Seumas' massive estate devolves to none other than lain. In Scotland the Lord and Lady eventually tire of one another, and find comforts elsewhere. Finally the vanished Seumas gives Iain a spiritual leg up on all the roistering passions at home and on the moors around him, in their final surprise confrontation. Implausible but harmless.