Dr. Sloper is a brilliant surgeon.  His beautiful and intelligent wife dies in childbirth, and their dull daughter has her father’s scorn.  When a dashing and cruel suitor shows up, the doctor, convinced the young man is only after her money, uses his vast resources of intelligence to beguile and threaten her out of her growing affection.  He then finds she’s has some willpower of her own.  The novel shows how society can cruelly, pitilessly misuse people.