In the course of the plot, simply but ingeniously construed, the Marquis of Wigan and Lady Augusta Decies were taken into the most awful and hopeless places of London. There was a third principal character, a cynical cicerone with a ruthless and bitter tongue, who explained everything to them and was the chorus of their progression.
In Doctor Davidson, a prominent socialistic leader, every one recognized a caricature of James Fabian Rose by himself, put before them to ram the message home!
The struggle in the woman's mind and heart was manifested with supreme art. Piece by piece the audience saw the old barriers of caste and prejudice crumbling away, until the culminating moment arrived when the young marquis must choose between the loss of her and the abandonment of all his life theories and the prejudices of race.
The end came swiftly and inevitably.
There was a great culminating scene, in which the girl appealed to her lover to give up almost everything—as she herself was about to do—for the cause of the people, for the cause of brotherhood and humanity. He hesitates and wavers. He is kindly and good-hearted, he wants her more than anything else, but in him caste and long training triumphs.
There is a final moment in which he confesses that he cannot do this thing.
With pain and anguish he renounces his love for her in favour of his order, the order to which she also belongs.
Even for her he cannot do it. He must remain as he has always been; he must say good-bye.
The last scene is the same as the first—it is Lady Augusta's drawing-room. Everything is over; they say farewell at the parting of the ways.
But she holds the little son by her first husband up to him.