Ruth

Ruth Hilton, an orphaned dressmaker’s assistant, is seduced and abandoned by the wealthy Henry Bellingham. Alone and pregnant, a hunchbacked nonconformist minister, Thurstan Benson, takes pity on her and helps her establish a new life as a respectable widow, Mrs Denbigh. In this guise she is able to obtain employment as a governess with the evangelical Bradshaw family. All is well until Bellingham reappears on the scene as the local prospective parliamentary candidate, and then Ruth’s hidden past is brought into the light. Her continuing self-sacrifice leads ultimately to tragic consequences.