This 6th book in the series dealing with problems of human happiness, is considered a character study. Fr. Dudley writes in the notes of this book “we are apt, rather smugly I think, to place certain characters beyond redemption. My choice of Gordon Tremayne has been deliberate, for the reason that humanly he seemed unredeemable. In the event he proved otherwise - owing to the monk acting on the principle of the potentially reclaimable deep down. . . The Gordon Tremaynes of this world are not uncommon, whose cruelties cry to heaven for vengeance, and yet remain untouched by law. Beyond human reach they may be, but not beyond reach of the Divine.