Carnac's Folly, Volume 3.

A young man named Carnac, raised by Mrs. Grier, is drawn into local politics and resolves to oppose the established leader Barode Barouche, whose charismatic public presence conceals a troubled personal past including an estranged wife and a long-ago intimacy with Carnac's mother. Parallel threads follow Junia and a suitor, Tarboe, and the family's artistic life as electoral agitation escalates. Public meetings, speeches and private memories expose competing motives, personal remorse and ambition, culminating in a heated campaign that ends in Barouche's downfall and Carnac's political triumph, while newspapers debate the outcome and characters confront the moral consequences of past choices.