Harriet A. Thompson was a beautiful, young, Christian girl who met Theodore Percival "Percy" Gerson, an Ivy League medical student and agnostic Jew, on a train while traveling home. In 1899, after six years of correspondence, Thompson’s father finally agreed to let her marry Gerson. However, a condition was made: Gerson must first get baptized as a Christian. Thompson’s father died shortly after, and the two were wed.

Once married, the couple became involved in various progressive activities. They befriended free-thinking anarchist Emma Goldman, as well as Margaret Sanger, a birth control activist, sex educator and nurse. The couple was also close with Clarence Darrow, most famous for his defense of John Scopes in the Scopes "Monkey" Trial. This social circle promoted—and practiced—atheism, communism and free sex, the latter of which would ultimately mark the demise of the relationship.

Thompson grew jealous of other women and pleaded with Gerson to exchange their open marriage for a more traditional, monogamous relationship. He refused. She grew depressed and fell into an illness. She died a middle-aged woman while on the operating table to remove a sudden "tumor." Her death, however, is shrouded in mystery. Was Gerson, a doctor, involved in her early death? Was it an accident or assisted suicide?

Arnold calls the story "a simple morality tale, yet it addresses illicit subject matter, is filled with intrigue and involves one-of-a-kind characters in American history."