AustLit

'On the night that Salvo's Circus appears at Dry Plain, one of the performers - Rupert White, known professionally as Bianchi - is so upset by the appearance in the audience of a man named Thomas Martin that he collapses during his act, leaves the show without notice, and eventually reaches the little town of Lethe in a pitiable state of hunger and weariness.

There he excites the sympathy of Mrs. Calder, a wealthy woman who lives with her nephew, Robert, and her companion, Mara Gordon. White, suppressing his very doubtful past, professes spiritualistic powers, and plays on Mrs. Calder's easily aroused credulity by holding séances and allegedly putting her into communication with her dead husband.

So complete does his power over her become that she establishes him in her house, buys him clothes, and gives him money. Recognising how pernicious his influence is, her nephew and Miss Gordon become alarmed.

During an interview in the summerhouse, Robert orders White to leave, but the intruder laughs in his face, and finally becomes so insulting that Robert is on the point of knocking him down. White, beside himself with alarm and fury, threatens him with a golf club. Robert snatches it away just as De. Milrae and Mara Gordon appear. Wilks, the gardener, is also a witness of the quarrel. Dr Milrae advises White to be careful what he is about...' (Publisher's abstract)