After losing his wife and settling into a secure government post in Ireland, Phineas Finn finds himself increasingly tempted by the excitement of his former political life and eventually gives up his safe position to contest the parliamentary seat at Tankerville. As the election and the controversy over Church reform unfold, Phineas renews old friendships while also becoming entangled again in the troubled marriage of Lady Laura Kennedy and her increasingly unstable husband, Robert Kennedy, allowing unresolved relationships from his past to intrude upon his new beginning. Although Phineas initially loses the election by a narrow margin, evidence of bribery overturns the result and gives him the seat, reopening his political career while the developing romance between Gerard Maule and Adelaide Palliser establishes another important thread in the story.