Dr. Wortle, the strong-willed clergyman who runs a highly respected school at Bowick, hires the exceptionally capable Mr. Peacocke as an assistant master, but the school is thrown into scandal when doubts arise about the legal status of Peacocke’s marriage to his American wife, and after confronting him Wortle learns that she had previously married Ferdinand Lefroy, was led to believe that Lefroy had died, and then married Peacocke only to discover later that her first husband was still alive. As Robert Lefroy appears and the secret spreads beyond the school, parents, clergy, the bishop, and Mrs. Stantiloup pressure Wortle to dismiss the couple, yet he refuses to treat a tragic mistake as deliberate immorality and continues to defend them, until Peacocke decides that the only way to settle the matter is to travel to America and discover whether Ferdinand Lefroy is now truly dead, leaving Wortle to face the growing public controversy at home.