The family lawyer, Mr. Pendril, tells Norah and Magdalen that despite appearances their parents had only been married for a few months, and their wedding invalidated Mr. Vanstone's will leaving everything to the daughters.

Scene Two is set in York, where Magdalen is found by Captain Wragge, a distant relative of her mother's, who confesses that he is a professional swindler.

Michael Vanstone has died; his only son Noel is sickly and looked after by his housekeeper, Virginie Lecount, a shrewd woman who hopes to inherit a large sum of his money.

Scene Four is set in Aldborough, Suffolk, where Magdalen tries to carry out her plot to regain her inheritance by marrying Noel Vanstone under an assumed name, with Captain and Mrs. Wragge posing as her uncle and aunt.

Noel, at her direction, rewrites his will, disinheriting his wife and leaving a respectable legacy to Lecount and the remainder to Admiral Bartram, his cousin.

Estranged from Norah and from Miss Garth, who she thinks betrayed her husband's whereabouts to Lecount, she conceives a plot to disguise herself as a parlour maid and infiltrate Admiral Bartram's house in order to search for the Secret Trust document.

Her own maid, Louisa, trains her for this role in return for Magdalen's giving her the money to marry her fiancé, the father of her illegitimate child, and emigrate to Australia.

The other half reverted to Magdalen as Noel's widow, because her dead husband never made a provision for George not marrying within six months, or for the admiral dying.

Admiring the integrity of Norah and Captain Kirke, she confesses her disreputable past to him and affirms that she will live a life worthy of him henceforth.

[2] The plot of the novel begins with the death of Andrew Vanstone in a train crash, reflecting contemporary Victorian anxieties about the introduction of the railway.

Her theatrical career is a representation of her ability to assume many different roles- an element which is used to examine society's views on women, and how social class and gender roles are ultimately determined by dress and bearing.

[3] In 2014, Jeffrey Hatcher adapted the novel for stage, initially at Carthage College before bringing the show to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Reviews stated that attempting to condense the complicated plot to a 90 minute show met with mixed results, although they complimented the production's comedy and wit.