It is the story of an unemotional English officer, Hugh Wyncot, whose languor, however, is really a mask which covers a character full of quiet determination decision and promptness to act when occasion requires. At the opening of the story he is in India and has been left a fortune and the guardianship of a young woman. The latter resents the idea of a stranger and a young man being appointed as her protector and resolves, upon his arrival in England, to teach him that his rights are legal only. When he does arrive he finds that the estate has been badly managed and that the mines, which are one of the chief sources of income, are in a practical state of siege; the men being on strike and under the leadership of an ex-convict by the name of Cragin. Wyncot reads their written demands and promises to think about them, much to the disgust of the girl, who would like to have him take some more active measures to bring the strike to an end. Instead, however, he gets information from London as to the character of the leader of the men, and when the right time comes and he is confronted by them with threats, he discloses to the astonished workmen the information he has from the detective bureau in London. Of course, they repudiate their leader and accept the fair arrangement of wages and work offered by their new employer. This rather opens the girl's eyes to the real character of the man she has wronged in her thought, and when Cragin steals into the house with a loaded pistol, resolved to take revenge upon the man who had defeated his plans, she pleads with him and finally offers him free passage out of England to a new country and a chance to make a fresh start in life, if he will give up his murderous plan. In the middle of the interview Wyncot is heard returning and the man, Cragin, secretes himself behind the curtains. She writes a pass which she asks Wyncot to sign and which he believes is for herself and is a further indication of her dissatisfaction with the state of affairs and with his guardianship. But, before he signs he hears a sound and stepping to the curtain, faces Cragin with the gun. True to his imperturbable calm, he walks to his desk in spite of the leveled revolver and takes from the drawer, not a pistol for his own defense, but a roll of banknotes. Then signing the pass and presenting it with the banknotes to Cragin, he invites him to leave the country. This generosity is too much for the ex-convict and he congratulates the girl upon her guardian and intimates that he may become more to her, an intimation which is apparently about to be fulfilled when the story ends.