When Mr. Tryan arrives in Milby, with his disturbingly evangelical and puritan tendencies, the small town is deeply divided in a bitter fight over the suitability of his evening lectures. The proud but desolate Janet Dempster, alcoholic wife of one of Mr. Tryan' s most vociferous opponents, delights in the clergyman' s persecution— until she unexpectedly finds her own redemption. Written when she was on the brink of her career as a novelist, Janet's Repentance foreshadows the themes of Eliot' s later work.