Falconer insists that the marriage must be kept secret because Madeline's lower social status will anger his sister, and also because it will help his career if people think he is still a bachelor.
Opie portrays Falconer as a selfish and unworthy character; whereas Maclean, a clergyman whom she might have married, is consistently shown as a good and worthy man.
Opie has Madeline face similar problems to her more well-known heroine Adeline Mowbray (including the fact that other men will try to sexually exploit her because they think that she is a mistress).
Madeline is very ill, but after a contrite Glencarron brings her parents to his estate and tries to mend bonds between the families, she finally recovers.
Meghan Burke Hattaway argues that the novel is more unconventional than it first appears, particularly in the figure of Madeline:'Secure in the sense of her own righteousness and supporting herself mentally and financially through modes of self-expression (as she writes for her sanity, and paints for her money), Madeline disregards the unsatisfactory available roles of “wife” or “whore” and is instead posed to survive and thrive respectably in an identity of her own making'.